Book Review: Naked Conversations

Naked Conversations aims to demonstrate how businesses can change their communication model with customers by way of blogging. The book, a must-read for anybody interested in corporate communications or public relations, deftly illustrates best and worst practices in blogging - showing that if businesses can, with clarity, speak directly to their customers and partners without being blurred by "handlers" and marketing, they will be best suited for the often-skeptical audiences of today.

The book's authors, Robert Scoble & Shel Israel, set out in writing the book from the perspective that blogging is a must-have weapon in today's integrated marketing arsenal, and found only a small handful of cases where they discovered corporations were better off by being tight-lipped. The vast majority of case studies displayed that consistent, thoughtful, topical blogging can enable trust and rapid response to both positive and negative news. The book also showed that you don't need a C-title (CEO, CTO, etc.) to blog for the company. All you need is desire, the willingness to publish often, and to be interesting.

Some companies, including Microsoft and Sun (especially so) have embraced blogging. They recognize that employees are often as passionate about their products as one would wish, but that they are first truthful - that they can speak to issues and efforts to resolve bugs. Disagreement and debate is encouraged, though some, unaccustomed to "naked conversations" have put up roadblocks to open discourse. Other companies, like Apple and Google, most prominently, actively dissuade employees from blogging or in any way representing the company, as the corporate communications are channeled through a select few.

If corporate blogs are to survive and thrive, they need to exist outside of the corporate spin zone. Though they can greatly augment the company's public relations and marketing efforts, the discussion should flow freely and honestly, and not sound canned, for if it does sound contrived, the blogger and company will immediately lose credibility with a fickle blogosphere, who has established higher expectations.

Naked Conversations clearly makes a case that today's businesses need to rapidly adapt to a world where blogs have tremendous influence. Positive or negative mentions in the blogosphere can have reach far beyond traditional print media, and to be silent  may as well place you with the dinosaurs. A press release can only go so far. As Naked Conversations preaches, it's time for corporations to open up, or the blogosphere will speak for them.

Listening to ''I'm a Big Sister, and I'm a Girl, and I'm a Princess, and this is my Horse'', by Underworld (Play Count: 2)

Looking Beyond Google

In the Web space, the big gorilla may seem insurmountable, but in stark contrast to the brick and mortar world, the supposed category leaders change relatively quickly, meaning companies need to continue their history of innovation to maintain and grow market share.

Even in the micromarket of Web search engines, you can see the progression. It could be argued that Webcrawler was the first big search engine. Entering search terms on Webcrawler in its infancy returned blue hyperlinks on a gray background, without ads, without search summaries or any other detail. In time, challengers emerged. Yahoo! opted to go the route of a mega-directory, ignoring search (at first), while enterprising scientists developed engines like Inktomi, HotBot and AltaVista, each one-upping the other in terms of search engine index span and accuracy. Meanwhile, other engines like Lycos and Excite gained a great deal of traffic, but weren't well known for their technology leadership. Yahoo!, then partners with Inktomi, before acquiring the company, became the far and away leader in the space.

But as we all know, it didn't last. Google, with its spartan interface, its targeted results, and PhD driven algorithms, soon took the title away from Yahoo!, becoming the default for most browsers, and soon aggregating more than 50 percent of the market. Now, you don't search for results, you "Google" them. Now, we see that everybody is competing with Google. Not just Yahoo!, but Microsoft, AOL, etc. And again, Google's lead seems insurmountable. They have tons of cash. They have a rapidly-growing brain trust of employees. They are a Wall Street darling. But, it's hard to be simple forever, and the company has been said to having taken their eye of the ball, on their core business, search, to pursue tangential distractions, including Google Earth, Google Gadgets, and other desktop tools.

Even Google seems to recognize that changes have to be made. In the last few weeks, the company quietly debuted a brand-new search engine as an experimental "sandbox" for new features, called SearchMash. SearchMash does away with contextual advertising, does away with offers to search Google News, or Froogle!, but simply displays Web page results and related images. The site again goes back to a Google-like spartan image, but lacks the Google branding and colors. One wonders why Google couldn't have used "yet another Beta" to play in this arena, or to tuck it away in one of their labs.

Outside of Google's labs and candy-colored Mountain View offices, a wide array of smaller companies are looking to outrun Google and catch the giant while it may be napping. BusinessWeek covers these challengers in a piece called "A Gaggle of Google Wannabes". While Google claims to have more people focused on core search than ever before, market share isn't handed out lightly, and a fickle customer base isn't that reluctant to try new options if the smaller, more nimble, competitors can change the game. 

This move is especially already clear when it comes to blogs. Google's Blog Search engine is woefully poor at filtering away spam blogs (splogs), and in this vacuum, engines like Technorati and Topix have taken the lead. Shopzilla and others have beaten Google at product searches. In the niches of this market, Google is not winning, and it will be a challenge to see how the company can reach these niches without getting ever more complex.

Underworld Web Releases Avoid iTunes

The British techno duo Underworld has always danced to their own beat. One of my favorite bands for a decade now, the group has performed in the best pair of concerts I've ever seen in my life, released the concert DVD that pushed me to by my first DVD player (which I still have), and continues to push the cutting edge on musical style and distribution.

The group, now a duo after losing famed DJ Darren Emerson, has often leaned toward longer tracks - in the 10-plus minute variety, rather than easy-bake radio hits that venture from three to five minutes, as the vast majority of pop artists do. But even these lengths seemed unwieldy to the oddly creative group, who has now found a home, at underworldlive.com, to issue exclusive tracks, which can range anywhere from 20 minutes to more than half an hour. The tracks, not bound by any Digital Rights Management (DRM) software, as Apple's iTunes and other offerings do, cost 5 British pounds apiece, are only available to registered users of their site, and download, encoded in Zip format, to a full track, as well as thirty-plus pages of the band's artwork.

I told you they were creative...

In 2005, the band first took the leap to direct from the Web sales, with its RiverRun project, issuing the singles "Pizza for Eggs" and "Lovely Broken Thing". Earlier this year, they continued, with "I'm a Big Sister, and I'm a Girl, and I'm a Princess and this is my Horse." (Don't ask) For customers like myself, who purchased all three, fans get a bonus download of "The Misterons Mix", only available to those who invested in triplicate.

Though best known for their Trainspotting-fueled classic "Born Slippy", Underworld has pioneered some of the most pure, electric sounds in the genre. It should be interesting to see how lucrative they find this eclectic move, with a bare minimum of publicity. It is especially interesting to see their avoidance of forced music lockdowns. On their site, they write, "We are not using any copy protection or drm as we prefer to start from the point of trusting our customers. If the system is abused, we will have to review how we provide content."

This is yet another amazing testimony to the Web - giving artists direct access to the fans, avoiding the middleman. The next time Underworld comes to your town, go see them. Until then, make sure you visit underworldlive.com. You might like what you find.

Listening to ''Pizza For Eggs'', by Underworld (Play Count: 6)

Morning Notes: October 4, 2006

More in an irregularly occurring series...

It's been an extremely busy start to the week, so I apologize for the light posting thus far. We've had a surprising confluence of events taking time away from the blog.

With that said, it's always a good idea to start with the top of the alphabet, with the A's. In the team's first playoff game against the Minnesota Twins, Frank Thomas hit two home runs and Barry Zito pitched masterfully in a 3-2 victory at the Metrodome yesterday, giving the team a 1-0 lead in the series, which continues today. The Twins were said to have needed a win in yesterday's game to win the series, and they didn't get there. Now the A's have picked up home field advantage. Of course, Athletics Nation was completely nutty for the day game, with nearly a thread an inning, and 3,000 comments. We were in meetings all morning and didn't see a single inning live, thanks to the ridiculous schedule.

Interestingly, the world of blogging has added a new wrinkle, as Zito himself has a blog he's keeping up in the post-season. After yesterday's victory, he sat down and wrote how he was feeling - both in preparation for the game, and as it progressed. Unlike many in sports, Zito has always come across as more on the analytical side, as you can see. (An Awesome Day In Minnesota)

Working down the alphabet, to Apple (and Microsoft), after the dust has settled, critics and potential customers alike are finding themselves wholly underwhelmed with Microsoft's release of Zune, their iPod-copycat music player. Wired writes that "Zune Won't Kill the IPod", while in an amusing slant, Roughly Drafted illustrates 10 reasons that Zune isn't the iPod challenger some would have you think it was. One reason? It's just not cool. I mean, brown? We don't have to work for UPS, so why would brown all of a sudden be hip? It's like HP and Dell trying to convince us beige is in this year.

I have to admit I've tried to stay above the fray and ignore much of the scandals in Washington of late. It seems if you give the GOP enough rope, they'll hang themselves, and they are well on their way. With Mark Foley's indiscretions being well-discussed, Electoral-Vote.com says that the Senate races show a near dead-heat for both parties, and a virtual tie in the House as well. Meanwhile, the San Francisco Chronicle is reporting that in a jaw-dropping move, the Republican-led budget tucked away $20 million for a big celebration of our successes in the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, to be held in Washington DC. Mission accomplished, anyone?