Andy Boyer

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All Hail the Blogger In Chief

January 23, 2009 /

Inauguration day – Tears of joy, hope renewed and a feeling that we will all succeed.

Well, maybe that sentiment was felt by the general public as well, but anyone running a Social Media Marketing agency was even more pleased when the President of the United States proclaimed transparency was king and announced the White House would have a blog, communicating directly with its consumers/constituents in a conversational manner.

The news made waves around the Seattle Social Media community as well.  “Will he Twitter?”  “Will there be a White House YouTube Channel?”  “What new platforms will the White House use for Social Media?”

Any marketing effort that is being undertaken by the leader of the free world basically trumps every argument from any CEO rejecting Social Media as a valuable part of the marketing mix.  So thank you Mr. President.  You have already provided stimulus to one industry.

 

When Does Something Stop Being A Start-up

January 14, 2009 /

TechFlash details the latest version of Marcelo Calbucci’s Seattle Startup Index.  The index tracks the Web traffic of Seattle based startups.  TechFlash trumpets that once again, Zillow.com is at the top of the ist.

Now, I’m not trying to be ornery, but there’s something about being at the top of a list of “Start-ups” for multiple years, that feels akin to winning Rookie of the Year 3 times.  I see a lot of names on the Start-up list besides Zillow that have been around for quite awhile.  Names like Payscale, WetPaint, Jobster and Widgetbucks (formerly mpire.com).  

You might ask, “Who cares?”

Well if you are a start-up that launched in 2008, you certainly care that your traffic numbers are being compared to those of a companies that are reaching their 4th birthday.  Especially if some of them have geenrated serious rounds of funding already.  One would assume that a senior in his 4th year playing basketball would have more cumulative points than a freshman, no matter how exciting that freshman is.  

It all just makes me wonder how a “Start-up” is defined these days.

AOL Splits

January 13, 2009 /

We know that a number of companies are going to have to radically change their practices to survive this year.  In what could be the first “re-invention” of 2009, AOL appears to have split itself in two, blowing up the AOL brand in the process.

The new divisions are called MediaGlow and PeopleNetworks.  According to AdWeek, “MediaGlow encompasses a collection of 70 niche content sites launched in recent years, ranging from AOL Health to nonbranded properties like TMZ.com.”  it appears to be similar to Federated Media, a collection of web sites all served by a single ad network.

Meanwhile, “People Networks focuses on social media properties like Bebo and AOL Instant Messenger.”

The AOL portal is effectively gone, an acknowldgement that people are using search to land in their destination of choice, rather than having a single home page they visit every day.  

There are a number of other features that you can read about in the article.  Basically though, the old AOL is finally done.  It will be interesting to see if the new AOL properties become leaders in their new markets.

But How Much is My Facebook Page Worth

January 13, 2009 /

So Twitter doesn’t make a dime of revenue.  But there must be value there, since it’s extremely popular and nature abhors a vacuum.  So maybe I’m the one who should generate the revenue from it.  

For example, suppose Pepsi called me and wanted me to tell all my Twitter friends that Double Caffeinated Clear Blueberry Diet-Pepsi was a one calorie blow pop of hyperactive goodness.  How much would I charge them?

Well lucky for me, I can go to TweetValue.com and get an estimate.  Turns out all my 60 or so Twitter friends are worth a measley $18.  Which actually sounds like a lot of money to me because it’s around to a $300 CPM.  Pepsi media buyer, call in the next 48 hours and I’ll give you a special deal price of $10 for each January tweet, and we’ll see how it goes.  

Maybe one day I can get as valuable as Shaquille O’Neal’s Twitter feed, which is a reachable $302. Barack Obama’s value of $41,000 seems a little unattainable.

But, I do wonder what would I get to message my Facebook friends?

Techcrunch Crashes

January 12, 2009 /

I don’t know why I find this amusing.  But Techcrunch, the sometimes snarky, often critical, source to get news about the technology industry, experienced a site crash today.  

This is only relevant since they consistently blast web sites and technologies when their servers break.  I wonder of they will explain what caused their own server issue.  

Why Models Don’t Run PR Agencies

January 7, 2009 /

So someone writes something nasty about you on a blog no one reads.  What do you do?

a) Ignore it 

b) Write a post on your own blog explaining why the other post is libelous

c) Do some personal SEO work so that you can bury the post on Google under a list of your own links

d) File a lawsuit so that the post goes super public across the blogosphere, letting everyone in the world link to the post that says the nasty things about you, and making it the number one link that shows up when people Google you for the next 20 years?

If you answered A, B or C, then we can have a reasonable conversation.  If you said, D, then you are model Liskula Cohen and are not familiar with how the world of Social Media works.  According to this Mediapost article, “Cohen alleges that she was defamed by the blog Skanks in NYC. The entire blog consists of five posts, all dated Aug. 21 that jab at Cohen.”  Note that the posts came out in August 2008, and if anyone cared about it then, they certainly don’t care now.  But, Cohen has managed to grab the remains of that flame, fan it, dump gasoline on it, and insert half a forest into the campfire.  Well done.

On a side but not totally irrelevant note, this is an important lesson in why you need to spend the $50 a year to own the url’s of your name, to register yourname.everyblog.com, to have basic profiles on Ning, LinkedIn, Naymz, Biznik, etc….and lock down yourname@everyemailaddress.com.  Because, you just never know when you may be named to a blog like Skanks of NYC and need to bury the link when people Google you.

What is Happening at Qwest Field July 4?

January 7, 2009 /

If you google: Seattle Sounders July 4 (or just click on this link) you’ll get a mysterious return.  All of the major ticket scalping sites have seats for sales, some for as much as $3000.  What do they know that the Sounders aren’t telling us?  And is it brilliant or careless to let the ticket brokers leak that some event is going to occur before you send out any formal announcements?  Hmm…. 

Will they or Won’t They? And Waht is the Effect of Widespread MSFT “Cutbacks”

January 5, 2009 /

So the blog world is all a-buzz with speculation about the rumored Microsoft cutbacks, layoffs, reductions, pruning, shearing or whatever other verb you want to use.  A lot of commenting is going on over at a blog called Mini-Microsoft, written by an insider.  

There are a ton of ways this could play out.  But at the end of the day, if Redmond makes either substantial cuts in one category, or small cuts across all full time heads, contractors, vendors and agencies, Seattle is going to feel a pretty big effect.

To the average Joe, it really doesn’t matter if Microsft makes formal layoffs, or just slows down the amount of contractors it brings on oard, or culls back some of its agencies.  In some shape or form, Steve Ballmer is writing checks to a bunch of people in this town.  Furthermore, if they do slash what they call the “10% ers,” those folks are going to come out with a tainted brand name on their resume.  If you are an employer, how do you justify hiring someone that was let go for being repeatedly on the “underperform” list?

Anyway, the point of this post is that it doesn’t matter what you call it.  Microsoft employing less people globally, means they will be hiring less people in Seattle.  And that causes not just full-time cutbacks, but also across agencies and temp firms.  And that’s bad for the city overall.  Let’s hope these rumors are disproven.  

Fudzilla Stakes Entire Reputation on the Line With Bold Microsoft Prediction

January 2, 2009 /

A Tech blog called Fudzilla announced on December 30, that Micosoft will be laying off 17% of its workforce, which comes out to be about 15,000 people.

Now, this is interesting because they don’t use the terms “speculate” “”could”, “might” or “possibly” to describe the layoff.  The exact quote is “The rumor that Microsoft was set to lay off people on January 15th, 2009 is no longer a rumor but a fact. Staff at Microsoft have been informed that the company is readying major layoffs to its worldwide operations and it’s not a small cut, either.”

Meanwhile Henry Blodget of Silicon Valley Insider Reporter reports today that Fudzilla is just that, full of Fud.  He says “A cut of this magnitude seems highly unlikely, although the targeted areas do make sense.”

I don’t know much about Fudzilla, but I do know Henry Blodget is on the speed dial of every person in Microsoft PR.  So it’s liekly that Blodget is repeating something he’s been told.  Either Blodget is lying, is being lied to, or Fudzilla received some faulty info.  

On Jan 22, we’ll see who is closer to the truth, the blog that originally broke a story, or a reporter breifed by a PR team.  Should be interesting.

9 Not Well thought Out Predictions for 2009

December 31, 2008 /

In no particular order…

1) Facebook will start charging $10 – $20 a year for company Pages, and no one will mind. Every small business has to pay $10 a year plus hosting for a web url, why shouldn’t they pay a yearly fee for a Facebook one?  Other companies like YouTube, MySpace and Twitter will attempt to follow suit.

2) Seattle sports:

  • Mariners’ youth movement is fun yet painful to watch.  Bedard and Washburn are moved to contenders in spring.
  • Since the Bidwill family owns the Cardinals, they make a huge off-season mistake and plunge themselves back to the NFC West cellar.
  • The Seahawks meanwhile make a brilliant off-season acquisition, and climb back through a weak division to 9-7 and the NFC West title.
  • UW football beats UCLA and guarantees Steve Sarkezian “hero status” for a year.

3) Layoffs at WAMU, Microsoft, Starbucks and other large companies create two phenomena:

  • A greater number of qualified, highly educated, intelligent, white collar professionals than ever apply for teaching credentials.  The Teacher’s Union immediately works to figure out a way to stop this from happening.
  • With a lack of full-time jobs and everyone fearful of the stock market, people turn to entrepreneurship, opening coffee stands, noodle trucks, photography studios and more.

4) Some state goes nearly bankrupt, and teachers and public workers get paid in IOU’s so that there is cash for welfare and unemployment checks.  This finally makes a segment of the voting population ask if things are out of whack.

5) New industries asking for government bailouts:

  • Ski Industry:  If Global warming is real, and the US is responsibile for Global warming, then the US government should pay reparations to the US ski industry for screwing up their climate.
  • Major League Baseball Players Association:  They’ve never needed a reason before, so they’ll ask for the fun of it.  And threaten to strike if they don’t get it.
  • Green Technology:  Anyone who invested in a green company, bought a green car or acquired a green investment fund when gas was $5.00 a gallon now wants money back, blaming the US foreign policies for bringing prices back down to a reasonable level.

6) In a change, a number of ordinary line workers employed by the UAW are caught in an expose detailing some sort of extravagance.  Since its not an executive scandal, but ordinary workers living lavishly on tax payer money, we see a huge backlash toward more bailouts.

7) A perfect storm of rising dollar and great airline deals make it cheap to travel to Europe – cheaper even than Asia.  Tourism booms to Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania.

8) With oil at $40 a barrel, this ridiculous winning streak the state of Oklahoma is on finally comes to an end.  Florida 59, Oklahoma 35. 

9) Thanks to the Sonics debacle and the host of other circus events coing from City Hall, people actually CARE about City Council elections this year, and a highly qualified pool of moderates and business people come in to take some of the spots. 

Got any predictions of your own?  Put them in the comments section below.  Happy New Year.

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