Podcast Of The Month: March

This is late so I’m going to jump straight into it. My choice for the March podcast of the month goes to Six Pixels of Separation for the interview with Seth Godin in #93. I also listened to #94 – #97, and #97 is the episode where Mitch talks about Social Media Breakfast: Singapore, so you might want to check that out as well.

Other podcasts that I really think you should check out:

I really enjoyed listening to CC Chapman on Managing The Gray where he responded to Intellagirl’s challenge on how to get non-social media people into social media, as well as his coverage of SXSW.

With that said I also enjoyed Shill’s thoughts on SXSW coverage happening literally everywhere else, and how that feels from people not at the event. I really felt their point of view because I was one of those people getting bombarded non-stop on Twitter about SXSW. Probably something everyone will have to figure out for the next event.

Joseph Jaffe also weighed in on the SXSW coverage and Intellagirl’s challenge in Jaffe Juice #107 as well as facing outward from the fishbowl. An observation which I think is spot on.

Marketing Over Coffee was also good this month with an episode on what to do with your house list, two parts on the state of search and talking about the power of free.

Two new podcasts I picked up are For Immediate Release which comes out so frequently I can barely keep up but some good, thought provoking content in there, as well as Inside PR, whose discussion on ethics in PR to be very enlightening in #103 and #104

As always I am open to any and all suggestions for new podcasts to listen do. Just drop me a comment! While you’re at it, why not check out the podcast of the month for February and January as well?

Social Media Breakfast: Singapore – Blog Coverage

Taking the place of Icio Links this week, some great online coverage of SMB: Singapore.

First up, Michael’s video. 12 minutes of awesomeness (you have to click on the link because as usual, WordPress is giving me problems with video).

Hisham gives his recount of a crazy weekend .

Amsie the foodie of course has her food pictures up.

Andrew too had a busy weekend but made the time to appear for SMB

YuHui’s post is here.

Prof. Michael dropped in for awhile but then followed the various conversations online to chime in as well.

Jeff Pulver (from whom we borrowed the personal tagging idea) picked up our video and we’re also very happy to have been picked up by Mitch Joel in Episode #97 of Six Pixels Of Separation. If you haven’t listened to this podcast, you need to. It’s the spark that got the collaboration for SMB off in the first place!

Truly a remarkable experience with great connections and conversations going on as well as a great community being formed. Don’t miss the next one!

It’s very possible I didn’t get all the pingbacks/trackbacks/links/Google Alerts, so if you posted something up on SMB: Singapore. Do let me know and I’ll add you in!

Edit:

Also picked up: a comparison between journalists and bloggers.

Nabilah has a recount of the whole social media adventure of hers from class to our audio interview to the SMB.

Sheylara wrote a lengthy post (with lots of great pictures) that you should check out as well.

Podcast Of The Month: February

February was when I really expanded my podcast horizons and picked up stuff other than Six Pixels Of Separation and Jaffe Juice and my winner for this month goes to:

Marketing Over Coffee: Picking On Grandma, for three reasons:

1. Great discussion on connectors and networks.
2. Picking on grandma isn’t as negative as it sounds, but rather serves as a reminder that companies need to develop user-friendly products. (Grandma can use an ipod much easier than some other MP3 player because itunes syncs everything)
3. Introduction of two useful Facebook apps (I’ll be showing one tomorrow).

My other nominees:

The Lost Initiative – I almost picked this as the winner because the discussion is so quick flowing. I think the British might just be less rambly. Ultimately, I decided the winner should be social media centric, so it’s a very close #2.

Six Pixels Of Separation #91 – for the 12 minute audio interview with Rick Murray. So good.

Jaffe Juice #104 – for the weigh-ins on 10 relationships vs 5 million impressions and also for mentioning that advertising is actually anti-cyclical to economic conditions, something that I don’t think companies grasp very well.

Special mention goes to the Hack College videocast #16, where they actually explored the idea of Twitter being used as a warning system in a school shooting. I draw parallel to wondering what would have happened if Twitter was used during 9/11.

Technorati Authority = Success?

I’ve been sitting on this post for awhile, but was motivated into action by Mitch Joel over at Six Pixels Of Separation on his post regarding Technorati Authority.

Background: Technorati authority is simply a measure of how many other people are linking to you from their blogs. ie If 10 people link Unique-Frequency, my Technorati ranking is higher than if 2 people linked me. (This isn’t a new metric of “importance”, Google’s PageRank uses a similar system)

Thinking about this over the last week or so, I have to respectfully disagree with Mitch on the issue because I don’t think it’s a good indicator of whether a blog is “successful” or not.

The reason? Technorati doesn’t discriminate between links. I could have been scraped by a spam blog, just added by someone’s blogroll or mentioned in Joseph Jaffe’s UNM2PNM new marketing and they all will get picked up equally and add to my authority.

That said, of course it’s nice to have a higher authority, but does that really, tangibly mean anything? For example, Mitch has an authority of 550 on Technorati, but Jaffe has about 685. Should that mean I automatically take Jaffe to be more credible? Certainly I have learned a lot from both bloggers and would not say they should be almost 150 points apart.

Conversely, the JaffeJuice group on Facebook has 626 members while the Six Pixels Society more than doubles it at 1325 members. Does that mean anything?

Both are instances where bloggers or Facebook users have a choice whether to link or to join the groups. Some choose to, some don’t.

Here’s what I feel is the inherent flaw: You have to own a blog or be on Facebook to add to the Technorati authority or to the Facebook group’s numbers. But the number of people who are actual content creators (ie bloggers) is somewhere in the region of 13% according to a study shown in social media class. In other words, the other 87% are by default, excluded.

Now I’m not saying this is a bad metric. Obviously I love it when my authority goes up (I’m at 13). But I also know that while I have certain nice mentions by people like Louis Gray in an actual conversation, it also contains spam blog links and links on people’s blogroll, whether or not they read my blog. This difference makes me take the Technorati authority with a pinch of salt.

The system isn’t perfect, but then perhaps no system is. But personally, until this tension between discriminatory and non-discriminatory links are reconciled, I’m hesitant to place a strong emphasis on Technorati authority.

Adventures In Social Media #1

One thing I really enjoy about Web2.0 is how you can meet and connect with people so easily, even when you don’t have any intention to.

Case in point? Adventure #1.

I was driving home listening to Six Pixels Of Separation #89, when I heard a distinctively Singaporean accent in an audio comment on Apple. So I got home, checked out the show notes and got to Sui Generis, Derrick Kwa’s website.

A little probing around later, I realised that I should get into direct contact with Derrick because he’s an Arsenal fan, clearly has a thing for marketing and new media and even has a post on the same JJ Abrams video at TED that I posted about awhile back.

In short, as mentioned so many times in social media discussions, Derrick is an example of “people like me”.

As a result Derrick is now on my MSN, we’re mutual friends on Twitter, and followers of each others’ blogs.

Now, this whole story has a point. I’m not trying to tell you about the serendipity of Web2.0 and that you’re going to find a soul mate online.

What I am saying is that the internet has so many people interested in so many things (literally anything) and you can very simply reach into that Long Tail, find your niche and find one person or a handful or many people who are just like you and share your common interests and/or passions.

So now you know this, what’re you going to do about it? Or do you already have similar stories to share? I want to hear from you!

Adventures in Social Media #2 will be coming next week, with some implications for this blog. Keep reading.

Podcast Of The Month: January

Admittedly I didn’t listen to many podcasts in January, but I’m still going to do this for the month, and there are a few conditions:

• I must have listened to the podcast in January (regardless of when it was actually released)
• The selected podcast can be the most entertaining/informative/educational. Anything goes.

So the winner for last month goes to Jaffe Juice #101 for an excellent Winners and Losers segment covering the whole Scrabulous fiasco by Scrabble and Mattel, as well as Target’s blatant disrespect to the blogging community. On top of that, it was this episode that motivated me to take part in Joseph’s UNM2PNM (Use New Marketing To Prove New Marketing) initiative, where he sends me a copy of his latest book, Join The Conversation, and I provide him a review in return. Sounds fantastic? It is.

Other notable mentions this month:

• Six Pixels Of Separation #84-87
• Comic Pants Podcast #47-48 (for comic/graphic novel fans only!)

There’ll be much more nominees for February (I’ve already listened to about 10 podcasts so far), so keep reading for that, or if you’re feeling nice, why not subscribe to my RSS feed to make sure you don’t miss it?

If you agree or disagree with my choice, I’d love to hear from you in the comments below, and alternatively, if you have a podcast you’d like to recommend me to listen to, leave me a comment as well.

Why Avenue Q Should Be Free, At Least Online

I was talking to Wanida online yesterday and telling her I really enjoyed Avenue Q, so she asked to borrow my soundtrack. I initially said no because she should watch it in person! She countered by saying that hearing the songs, will further increase her interest to catch the next time in New York. I realised that was pretty much the same for me: listening to Les Miserables on cd on an almost-daily basis when I was young made me really want to catch it when I first flew to New York to see how the scenes I imagined in my head played out on stage.

With that in mind, I went to the website to find a song or video clip to show her, but the only clips on the official site were 29 seconds long (featuring a cast who isn’t even performing anymore), and those on youtube are secretly filmed in the theatres.

So how in the world does someone in Singapore get an actual sample of what Avenue Q is about?

First of all, let’s establish that Avenue Q does a great job with traditional marketing. There are huge billboards in Times Square with really funny, provocative advertisements. That works fine if people are living in the United States and are exposed to it.

However, Avenue Q is never going to go to certain countries like Singapore and others because it’s controversial and we’re conservative. When Singaporeans (and perhaps most tourists) visit New York, the tendency is to catch the newest show (Is He Dead?), the hottest show (Wicked) or the sold-out-for-ten-years show (The Lion King). Given that there are easily 20-odd theatres with musicals at any one time, how does a show like Avenue Q get the average tourist to consider their show instead? (And hey, before you think Avenue Q isn’t any good, they won the Tony over Wicked).

My solution is to release full length audio and video clips for download and/or streaming. Before you get up from your seat and go “What? Those seats go for a hundred bucks!”, hear me out.

This will enable people to really sample what the show is like, get the show some exposure, and if they ever make a trip over to the United States, you can bet that in addition to Wicked and Lion King (which will probably be sold out anyway), they’ll have Avenue Q in mind as a possible Broadway musical to catch as well.

Why full length audio? Avenue Q has an advantage in that it has absolutely brilliant and attention-grabbing song titles. Imagine seeing a friend listening to “The Internet Is For Porn” or “It Sucks To Be Me” on MSN or Last.fm, that is definitely going to generate interest, which can translate to word of mouth and eventually, ticket sales.

This concept of distributing certain bits of a product for free isn’t new. I first read about it in October when Chris Anderson gave away a chapter of his book, Mitch Joel at Six Pixels of Separation has also explored How to make money by giving something away for free.

Joseph Jaffe also has a new initiative UNM2PNM (that’s Using New Marketing To Prove New Marketing) by giving away 150 copies of Join The Conversation, as long as the recipients give an honest review of the book. I’ve applied for a book, hopefully geographical restrictions allow for it to happen.

Finally, let me say that I’m providing a fairly simplistic view of Avenue Q’s distribution. I don’t know what the legal scene is like and if this is actually possible. But if it were, this would be something I’d do straightaway.

Content Or Popularity? The Follow-Up.

Well now that we know what Mitch Joel would say about the content or popularity post, I’ve been thinking about it and I would say that there’s definitely a divide/separation/segregation between the content blogs, and what I like to call the Meepok Blogs, where people type “today I went to eat meepok” or whatever they had for breakfast. (For non-Singaporeans, meepok is a type of noodle available at most places).

So knowing that these different types of blogs exist, my next question would be: Where does the interaction, or possibility of interaction, exist between the two “genres” of blogs?

I realise that content bloggers very rarely have Meepok posts, and similarly the other way round. In fact I remember reading an advertising blog that wasn’t half bad, until the author posted something that sounded a lot like a personal, whiny rant, which was just so jarring and inconsistent with the advertising of the blog.

So what do you think? Is it inevitable to have this divide between Meepok and non-Meepok blogs? Or is there some interaction, hidden or otherwise, where all these authors come together?

Update: From Mitch Joel:

“I think Journey finding a singer like this answers your question. There are enough people looking for all sorts of different stuff that it’s the niches that matter.

It’s a story like this that inspires someone like Christopher S. Penn and myself to be re-energized about this space.

It sounds like you’re trying to create a co-relation between this type of media and Mass Media – you can’t.

Some niches have bigger audiences – and some people play towards that bigger audience.”

Thanks, Mitch!