How often do you get to see this?

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Jason Calacanis & Robert ScobleRobert Scoble and Jason Calacanis blogging side by side at the Blog Business Summit.

I wonder if they were writing about this?

JASON CALACANIS LAUNCHES NEW SHOW ON PODTECH NETWORK
PodTech and Calacanis pioneering media philanthropy with podcast channel sponsorships of over $100,000 donated to education

MENLO PARK, CALIFORNIA (October 26, 2006) PodTech Network announced today that a new audio and video podcast show, CalacanisCast, will be launched on the PodTech Network with GoDaddy.com as the founding sponsor. The weekly show will be hosted and produced by Jason Calacanis, CEO of Weblogs, Inc. (an AOL Company) and General Manager of Netscape.com (an AOL Company), and will focus on Jason’s insights in new media and technology trends and those of his special guests. CalacanisCast launches with over $100,000 in first year sponsorships that will be donated to the Bay Ridge Preparatory School, a K-12 private school based in Brooklyn, New York.

Jason Calacanis said “I’m thrilled to have PodTech and GoDaddy.com as partners. We’re going to have a fun time with the show, and help some kids in need at the same time. It doesn’t get any better than that”.

The media philanthropy model that the CalacanisCast show represents is a first example of a sustainable, high-quality media property that generates not only awareness, but monetary support, for philanthropic causes. Sponsorship revenue for CalacanisCast will underwrite the tuition of disadvantaged youth to attend Bay Ridge Prep, and represents the formation of the Bay Ridge Prep Opportunity Scholarship Fund. 
 

BBS: Halley Suitt, Janet Johnson, and Buzz Bruggeman

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The next session was a panel with Halley Suitt, Janet Johnson, and Buzz Bruggeman.This session was billed as: Engaging with Bloggers: Working the Blogosphere. It promised to provide insight into the right way to approach blogger relations.

Halley Suitt: “For starters, can you please know what I’m writing about? Read my blog. … Everybody should take a month and read the blogs you are interested in and read them before you approach them. … Even within similar blogs, there are different perspectives and interests.”

Janet Johnson: “I was the person in the other seat two years ago when Jason started to rant against people paying bloggers, when Marqui did it. … It’s really important to have people in the blogosphere know what you want from them. If I’m a blogger and you want me to write about you, be very honest about what you want. Bloggers want to help others. But they need to know what you are up to.”

Question: What do you need to do to prepare?

Halley Suitt: “You need and aggregator and you need to subscribe to RSS feeds.”

Janet Johnson: “I also go out on the blog search engines and type in keywords and names. And then I find the feeds that are talking about the subjects that I am interested in.”

Imagine my surprise when Buzz Breggeman decided to show the audience how technorati search feeds work and what comes up at the top of the search for Halley Suitt? My ProPR post!

Buzz Breggeman: If you are a PR company that wants to pitch a company to help them, try their product BEFORE you call them.

Halley Suitt: If you are pitching me, include lots of data and all the necessary background.

Halley Suitt said that she had engaged a public relations agency for her company. And she was impressed that the PR people talked to her about a post on her blog. “They had read it. They showed they cared.”

Buzz Breggeman: “You don’t get points for shyness. You don’t get points for staying away from interesting topics. In my own blog, I only write once about every six or seven posts about my company. But most of my posts are about customers. What they need. What they are saying.”

“How do you engage a blogger? Read the comments. You’ll find whose interested in what topics. Most of the conversation goes on in the comments, not on the main posts.”

BBS: Jason Calacanis

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Jason Calacanis’ keynote was themed: From Weblogs, Inc. to Netscape: Maintaining Authenticity and Integrity Within Commercial Social Media.

Integrity. I was looking forward to this presentation after the aggressive stance Jason took earlier in the week in response to Newsgator’s experimentation with advertising on Newsgator Online.

“Good morning. My name is Jason and I’m a blogger.”

There are all types of uses for a blog today – to express a personal view, to build a business or to generate revenue. A blog is like paper. You can make a book, a beautiful magazine or toilet paper.

(Justin Hall began the first blog in 1995. If you don’t know who Justin Hall is, find the movie, HomePage, and learn about the roots of blogging.)

“The thing that attracted me to blogs was authenticity. They are very real.”

The year 2003 was the year when blogs really broke through. That was a dark time full of mistrust of mainstream media (Fox News!) Blogging software already existed. And when a large number of tech people were laid off, the perfect conditions were created for blogging to break out – motivation, tools and people.

 In 2003, Jason was publishing an online magazine. And as he watched his writers go out and be successful with the then emerging blog outlets. And as he watched his traditional publishing business wind down, he realized that he needed to change. Out of this, Weblogs was born. At a time when the business model was not proven and when there was suspicion about trying to commercialize blogs.

Jason regaled the room with anecdotes of his seminal moments with other web and blogging personalities – some happy (Peter Rojas, Mark Cuban) and some unhappy (Nick Denton).

“We’re all outsiders. Bloggers have found their own space, they’ve made it the way they want it, and they don’t like when you screw with it.”

His deal with Time Warner was found on an understanding that Time Warner would never try to mess with the Weblogs content.

“The forces of evil: Whenever something great is made, the marketers come in. There are good marketers and there are bad marketers. There are good people in life and there are bad people. …. There are some bloggers who are great. And there are some people who suck at it.”

“Want to be an A-list blogger. Go to Techmeme. Look for the top three stories. Write about them every day. Go to the blogs of the other people who are writing about these stories and comment. Do this every day and attend every conference going. And you’ll be an A-lister. Write once every two weeks and wonder why you aren’t an A-lister?

 “Blogging is the biggest meritocracy in the world. It’s not broken. You don’t rank? It’s because you suck. … How well you do is up to you.”

“It really is obnoxious to look at the space and say it’s broken because you’re not doing well. If you want to succeed, do a better job.”

“Then we have people who come along – like Payperpost. Now we get into the evil part of me. … I care when somebody comes into this beautiful place where trust and authenticity matters. And then these people come in and … they get into trickery…. If you go selling your posts and not disclosing it, that’s not innovative, that’s lying.”

At Weblogs, “we maintain a church and state separation of advertising and bloggers. The bloggers know about the ads when they see them on the site.”

“I’ve been talking about the payperpost folks. And I want to go over some of the arguments. … One of the things we do best as bloggers is argue. … But it’s always with a smile that we debate…. But you can be intellectually dishonest when you debate.”

“One of the first arguments of the payperpost people is, “We’re just an enabler.” When you enable people to do something wrong, you are part of it.

“They make the other crazy argument that The A list bloggers are trying to keep the Z list bloggers down. There are no A list bloggers. Just people who’ve been at it longer.”

“Tim Draper, you put $3 million into a company doing covert marketing. What were you doing? … What were you thinking, Tim Draper?”

Final thing: “This podcasting thing is going to be big. Two years ago I said that I didn’t see it. I was wrong. … Probably 20% of what I write is wrong. But that’s OK, because we get there together.”

“Something’s going on. I listen to more radio than I ever have and I never turn on a radio. Something big is going on. … I want to podcast and I don’t need the pay cheque. I will be dong calacaniscast on podtech. Podtech and GoDaddy together have donated over $100,000 to sponsor 50 episodes together. And the money will be used to sponsor two girls to attend the Baycrest private school in New York City.”

Audience question: What about YouTube? “I was fabulously wrong about YouTube. … At the end of the day was there growth based on a ton of copyright violations? Duh. But at the end of the day, I’ll give them credit for threading the needle. … Unlike Napster, they cut deals with the content rights holders. …. I believe that YouTube will go down as the company that will be seen to have convinced content holders to put their content out there and then to figure out how to make money later.”

Audience question: Why did you sell Weblogs? “When to sell your company is a personal question that depends upon your shareholders and where they are in their lives. Our shareholders were offered a deal that would pay them for the next three years of their lives. They wanted it and they took the deal. … You have to look at these things on a personal basis and pick when you exit. … This was right for our shareholders.”

Audience question: How about if you are transparent that somebody has given you money for something? “Yes. Transparency counts. … But if you’re going to make a media business out of it, you never ever want anyone to be able to say that you benefited from the people you wrote about. … All you have as a blogger is your authenticity, your trust.
Fight, do not ever let anybody get inside the blog post.”

An entertaining sesson with lots of quality name dropping. Look for it on YouTube.

BBS: Jeremy Pepper, Jeanette Gibson and John Starkweather

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Jeremy Pepper, Jeanette Gibson from Cisco and John Starweather from Microsoft kicked off the conference with a session titled What’s Next in Online Communications?

John Starweather led off by talking about Microsoft as a place to blog and a place to innovate. John is involved in the Mobius project which is developing new applications and platforms for mobile technologies. He believes that we will soon see even more useful applications for mobile devices.

Jeanette talked about Cisco’s efforts to use the new social media to develop feedback and communication with customers and users.

One of the audience members asked the panelists about their efforts to educate employees about the potential for engagement and how these tools can be used internally. John responded that he believes that most marketers have not yet grasped the full potential of social media and the changed relationships with consumers. As he talks to people internally, people are demanding data. And this is an area that must be focused upon. Good data to show what is really happening.

Jeanette says that Cisco’s CEO communicates with employees using Vlogs. They have an IPtv network internally. They’ve also developed an internal Wiki to share information.

A couple members of the audience raised questions about Second Life. One questioner asked Jeremy about his views on crayon’s Second Life presence. Jeremy suggested that Second Life provides the crayon partners with a presence in a single “place.” This overcomes the fact that they are geographically dispersed in four cities thousands of miles across. As such, it’s a clever move.

John suggested that the future will see mobile devices becoming as ubiquitous and non-intrusive as watches have become. Developers should watch this closely and be sure to design for the small screens of these devices.

How can social media be proved and sold internally? Jeanette suggested that she and her colleagues are spending a great deal of time trying to find indicators of effectiveness. For their web newsroom, they attempt to identify the social media opinion leaders and to demonstrate that these people will generate content that will lead mainstream media coverage.

There were no great new insights at this session. But is was a nice warm-up for the audience. And the best indicator for this was the buzz that began in the auditorium immediately after the session as members of the audience turned to one another and kept the conversation going.

Business Blog Summit – Thursday sessions

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I’ve arrived in Seattle for the Blog Business Summit.

I’ll blog as much of the conference as possible. Sessions I’m hoping to take in today include:

And that’s just in the morning (whew.) In the afternoon, I’m looking forward to:

  • Mary Hodder, Dave Taylor and Halley Suitt, RSS and Feeds: Monitoring the Blogosphere and the Buzz
  • Ben Edwards, Nicki Dugan and Betsy Aoki: Corporate Blogging Policy
  • Betsy Aoki, Korby Parnell, Jeff Sandquist and Jana Carter: Microsoft and Social Media: Lessons Learned from MSDN Community Blogs and Channel 9

I’ll try to live blog each of these sessions (surely there will be Wi Fi). If I get a good connection, I’ll post after every session. Otherwise, they’ll come in a bunch whenever I can get a connection.

I hope you’ll follow along

Heading to Seattle for the Blog Business Summit

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Blog Business SummitI’m travelling to Seattle this week to attend the Blog Business Summit. They have a great line up of speakers this year, including Buzz Brugeman, Chris Pirillo, Dave Taylor, Jason Calacanis, John Battelle, John Furrier, Jory Des Jardins, Maryam Scoble, Matt Mullenweg, Ponzi Indharasophang, Tara Hunt, Tris Hussey and Robert Scoble.

I plan to blog about the sessions I attend. So, I hope that you’ll subscribe to my feed and follow along with me.

Ottawa communicators meet to discuss social media

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At lunch today, I participated in a panel discussion sponsored by CPRS Ottawa-Gatineau on the theme: Knowing What You Don’t Know: Are Blogs and Social Media Changing the Communications Landscape? My fellow panelists were blogger Ian Ketcheson  and Rob Henderson from CNW Group.

Rob Henderson said that while many of CNW’s clients have been slow to embrace social media, they now are are expressing increasing interest in it. They know something is coming. And they want to be ready for it when it breaks into the mainstream.

Publicly traded companies are concerned about what they don’t know. The unknown lends a random, unpredictable element to the management of their corporate reputation.

Rob suggested that a number of the larger companies are holding back on social media because they want to see some of the early adaopters make the mistakes. Then they will have the “before” picture and be able to engage in social media with a set of established best practices and known conventions.

CNW has been introducing multiple streams of multimedia to match their clients’ appetite as it develops.

Ian Ketcheson talked about the environment for social media in government. He believes that senior executives in government get the significance of social media. It’s seen as one of the most pressing issues that they must deal with. And they are struck by the speed with which the changes driven by social media are occurring.

The breaking of news about the Gomery Committe on the Captains Quarters blog brought home to government communicators that traditional means of controlling news and information have broken down. Garth Turner’s expulsion from the Conservative caucus demonstrated that a public figure can harness the blogosphere to match large organizations in advancing his or her position.

There is much experimentation with social media in various parts of the government. Like social media itself, it reflects the initiative of individuals operating beyond a centrally planned and controlled strategy.

The discussion with the audience touched on a broad range of issues, including the power of social media to conduct consultations with people regardless of their geographic location; the power of blogs behind the firewall to bring organizations together and to provide a channel for genuine and spontaneous feedback; and social media as a tool to enhance collaboration.

The point was also made that many blogging reporters are exploring potential stories first on their blogs. They may then assemble a perspective and body of facts necessary to compete for the limited space in the mainstream media outlet. Finally, communicators must prepare their organizations to surrender the fiction that they control the message and instead understand that the era of social media requires that communicators engage in persuasion, not control.

I ended the session with an invitation to the participants to visit this blog post and get engaged in social media by leaving a comment. So, the success of my contribution will be judged by whether there are any comments here.

Third Tuesday – Mathew Ingram

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Third Tuesday Toronto attendees last night heard from Globe and Mail technology writer and blogger (geekwatch , mathewingram) Mathew Ingram.

When Mathew first discovered blogs, the comments drew him in as much as the original post. He had been writing an online column for the Globe and Mail since 2000. He was read by about 10,000 people per day. And he was receiving very little comment. Then the Globe took its online content behind a paywall. His readership plunged from 10,000 per day to 300.

He began his blog to reach around the paywall and at the same time begin to interact with his readers. And he was not disappointed. His audience talked back to him from the outset of his blog.

At the newspaper, many people are skeptical of the value of many of the comments posted on blogs – seeing many as riff raff with unqualified views. But Ingram feels that a great deal of value was being missed. So his approach has been, when in doubt, let it be posted.

What does he put on his personal blog and what does he put on his Globe blog? He has no set rule. There still aren’t that many people who are writing both for the paper and publishing their blogs. So, he is making up the rules as he goes along.

Obviously, his personal blog has more of his personal thoughts. He assumes that most of his readers for his personal blog are more tech savvy. So, he will go more in depth, more inside info on his personal blog.

The other reason the blog is so appealing to him is because he has so much more that he would like to write than he can actually match to the newspaper’s space requirements. These are most often short, snappy pieces that fit on a blog but would not meet the standards of the newspaper.

Mathew also uses his blog as an idea generator. He will often write small stories on his blog that turn into the seed of an idea for a story in the newspaper. Second Life is a good example of this. He began posting stories on his blog about companies establishing themselves in Second Life. And as he thought about it he realized this was a legitimate business story. A story in the newspaper followed.

Looking at the blog networks, Mathew sees many of the individual blogs as being throwaways. But in a medium in which the cost of entry is so low, it is possible to throw many of them at the wall to see if any stick.

Should PR practitioners treat bloggers differently than journalists who write only for Mainstream Media? Yes. Bloggers can post at any time, in any way, at any place. They have broken free of the news cycle and the space constraints of the traditional outlets.

Blogging in the newsroom has moved beyond the tech niche. Beats that have already embraced blogging include not only tech and politics to include business and sports. Each has an intensely interested audience that wants information immediately. Blogs are a natural medium for niche interests.

On Reuters Bureau in Second Life: “I think it’s a great idea. What does it cost Reuters? Maybe a few Linden dollars. And it’s great marketing for Reuters. It gives people the impression that Reuters knows what’s going on.”

We are seeing a blurring of boundaries similar to when people in the early days of the web first discovered that they could travel to sites anywhere in the world without leaving their living rooms. The interesting thing is not so much where it is happening as what is happening.

What will this mean for Canadians? One of the impediments to free access and flow of information is the current content ownership arrangements. For example, some television programs are available through webcast in the US, but not available in Canada because our IP addresses are blocked.

On time division between the traditional newspaper (day gig) and personal blogging: Mathew feels that he benefits from an employer that views his personal blogging as a continuum with his newspaper writing. It adds to his knowledge and wealth of story ideas.

On PR practitioners pitching bloggers: Mathew says that he is being pitched all the time to write on his blog about startups, new companies, new things by people who are trying to get something viral going on.

He thinks that many people are still trying to figure out how to do this correctly. Some people seem to be sending out mass pitches to a list without necessarily being familiar with the actual content of his blog. PR practitioners need to be familiar with the content of the blog and the perspective of the blogger in order to effectively approach the blogger to pitch an idea.

Sometimes, he will pick up ideas for blog posts that will make a perfect post, but do not have enough substance or heft to make a good full story in the newspaper.

Bloggers have even shorter attention spans than journalists in traditional media outlets. So, make the pitches very focused, very tight.

And one good rule for pitching bloggers: “Don’t be a dick.” Don’t do something to a blogger through the online pitch that you wouldn’t do if the person was standing right in front of you.

On Edelman / Wal-Mart: Richard Edelman said that he took Thursday and Friday to find out the facts. He wrote the response on the weekend and then he took the next day to get people to sign off on his statement as being factually correct. Mathew’s reaction: He took eons in blogging time. By the time he responded, it was far too late.

A great presentation. With the questions and answers, Mathew was on his feet for more than an hour. Thank you Mathe
w for your generosity in spending time and giving so freely of your thoughts and ideas to the Toronto social media community.

And thanks to Ed Lee for taking the lead in organizing tonight’s event!