The head of interactive and innovation at P&G, Ted McConnell, added to the downbeat buzz on the monetization of social networks.  Here’s a pretty biting, yet insightful comment, captured in a recent AdAge article:

“I think when we call it ‘consumer-generated media,’ we’re being predatory,” he said. “Who said this is media? Media is something you can buy and sell. Media contains inventory. Media contains blank spaces. Consumers weren’t trying to generate media. They were trying to talk to somebody. So it just seems a bit arrogant. … We hijack their own conversations, their own thoughts and feelings, and try to monetize it.”

While I personally take exception to his perspective, I’ll restrict my comments to the local social space.

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social, local social, strategy | No Comments »

The business of social media is morphing, which is no surprise.  What is interesting to note is the growing importance of what I’d label “filtration and curation” (not just because of the Jesse Jackson ring it brings to the title!).

In the “early days” of social media, we focused on aggregation - picking up the crumbs of commentary wherever it can be found and blending it to amass some scale of commentary.  As the world gets more and more conversant, aggregation hatches a new problem, in its quest to solve an old one. Every day, the problem of scale is being solved naturally, via the sheer volume of user participation. Context and interaction form the mantra, replacing more.

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web 2.0, social, local social, local guides, strategy, OpenSocial | 1 Comment »

Adding on to my recent post about Twitter, check out the NY Times excellent article which puts Twitter into the context of the social media landscape, and relative to Facebook in particular.  When you get a chance, do take a full read - it’s one of the best pieces I’ve seen for a layman understanding the consumer shift towards a world of “ambient awareness”.

In my Twitter post, I intentionally left out two things which the NYT pulls together well: One, the context of Twitter versus Facebook (who really pioneered the concept, and continues to consider the status update central to their evolution).  Two, it explains the side of Twitter which is “sideline” to my current usage - the emerging world increasingly referred to as “lifestreaming”. Read Write Web did a great primer on Lifestreaming a few months back, also worthwhile reading if you’re interested.

local social, IM, OpenSocial | No Comments »

A hearty congrats to the Praized Media team for the launch of their new local social media platform and web services.  It’s an ambitious and interesting plan that I’ve checked into from time to time as Sebastien, Harry and Sylvan went from concept to launch.

A couple of concepts underlying Praized will be very interesting to watch…

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local social | 1 Comment »

There has been a very interesting dialog recently in a couple of leading blogs surrounding the question “who owns comments?”.

In the blog universe, the most interesting content often comes from the dialog that a blog post triggers. The interaction drives both engagement and content value.

So, what are the thought leaders saying about the balance of rights between the blogger/publisher and commenter?

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social, local social, strategy | No Comments »

I’ve long believed that neighborhoods represent a key ingredient in how local search and media evolves. Back around 1995, Brad Inman held a brainstorming retreat for online real estate people at his redwood forest home. I still remember Brad’s passion about the importance of neighborhoods in the fabric of online real estate - and community in general; as a former real estate newspaper writer Brad used to love doing neighborhood profiles. While the concept has stuck with me, the content gap made it an impractical pipe dream.

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local social, local shopping, strategy, OpenSocial, facebook | 2 Comments »

When you have little time and lots of money, your strategic move is obvious.

I thought I’d push out a few armchair quarterback suggestions on MS-Yahoo’s strategic moves in the local media space.

For simplicity, let’s call it MSY - plus, it just might get kind of MeSsY. (more…)

search, local social, Jabber, YP, strategy, maps, local mobile | No Comments »

Kelsey does a nice job highlighting and challenging us to think about the user participation model of YP. Mike Taylor leads into the debate on the TKR website with his “Will Consumers Ever Rule the Yellow Pages”? post:

Can publishers make the print product relevant to younger adults experiencing the life events that drive usage — getting married, buying a home, having children? Online, are publishers simply porting over an advertiser-oriented business model onto a user-oriented Internet? Does the Yellow Pages industry fully grasp how the way people search for local information has changed?

While it’s healthy for YP to fess up to lagging in each of these areas, the question I’d center on is where from here? (more…)

local social, local shopping, YP, strategy | 3 Comments »

We’ve long differentiated between searching and browsing. I like the new term “Discovery” because browsing is about to be expanded in bold ways by the newly forming connective tissue known as the “social graph”.

Consumers have been using the internet more and more frequently for information exploration; Building on this behavior, Discovery will emerge to become an increasingly critical dimension of consumer shopping and purchase behavior. Far more personal than search, Discovery can smartly traverse paths forged or suggested (directly or indirectly) by people you know, trust or admire. (more…)

social, local social, strategy, OpenSocial | No Comments »

Every teen (that isn’t locked up in a Waco training camp) has some form of self-publishing technology entrenched into their daily lives. Every college student in North America, and increasingly around the globe, has some active engagement with the new commons - Facebook and their facsimiles. Let’s face it, online self-expression and conversation is embedded into the social fabric of the next gen local consumer.

But this is way beyond being just a teen thang. (more…)

social, local social, strategy | No Comments »