The Business Blog at Intuitive.com

We want YOU to speak at the Thin Air New Media Summit in Denver, Colorado!

I'm cribbing some of this material from Goldie Katsu, who is the chairperson of the Thin Air Summit. Read on, though!

For those of you who have joined us at the Denver area Podcaster's meetups you have heard some updates on the Thin Air Summit, but an update is long overdue.

The executive committee, Kit Seeborg, Rob McNealy, Erik Boles, Shandra Botello, Brian Yuhnke, Goldie Katsu and I have been doing a lot of planning and we wanted to bring you up to date and ask for your help.

The event will be happening at the Art Institute of Colorado, on November 7-9th. This first year event will be limited to 100 people making this event real opportunity to connect with the other attendees, share ideas and learn more about creating new media in depth.

For those who will be unable to attend this year, they will be able to watch the live cast of the keynotes and after the event the sessions will be released as podcasts.

The event itself will start on Friday night, November 7th with an introductory workshop. The workshop will be about "Everything You Wanted to Know About New Media but were Afraid to Ask". [With apologies to Woody Allen --Dave]

Saturday we transition to the conference with the focus on in-depth educational sessions and panels on creating, promoting and understanding new media.

In keeping with the Independent and Connected theme, the instructor led sessions are broken into three independent tracks:

• Text - blogging, microblogging, web publishing
• Audio - Podcasting, live audio shows, music
• Video - Podcasting, Live Streaming, Video dialogues

The panels, which both start and end the day, will bring all of the attendees together as we explore common themes and look at defining and understanding new media in its many forms.

Right now we have a call for presentations open and this is where we need your help. Help spread the word about the call for presentations and if you have an expertise in new media and could lead an education session in one the above areas stop by the Thin Air Summit website and fill out the proposal form at:

http://www.thinairsummit.com/presenting/

If you haven't spoken at a conference before, this could be a good place for you to seek to either pull together or join a panel, and if you have spoken before but don't tend to travel out of Colorado too often, this is also a great opportunity for you to get involved in a grassroots Podcamp-esque event. Please, send us your best ideas!

Thanks!

First things first: Sign up for the Blogsmart News so you can stay up to date on the latest insider tips and ideas for your Internet business and marketing efforts. Better yet, sign up right now and you'll get a free copy of my "Insider's Guide to Blogging" ebook too!

Interview with Jason Alba, author of the "Now What?" social media books

When Jason Alba, publisher of the popular new "Now What" series, asked me a few questions about how I use Twitter (I'm @DaveTaylor) I was intrigued by his work and asked if I could interview him about the series. Here's the result...

Q: What social networks do you use actively?

A: This is a great question because I think a lot of social networking experts are more early-adopters, and not real users of the systems they write about. I log into LinkedIn at least once a day to do various activities (doesn't take much time). Note, if I were a bus dev guy, or a recruiter, I would use it different than how I use it now... I login to Facebook about three times a week for general maintenance, and need to do more there as I know there is more I should do.

Time has become an issue for me. I'm on Twitter frequently, I'm guessing I'll tweet between 5 and 10 times a day. I also consider blogging and Yahoo! groups social networking (in loose terms), and I blog at least once a day (I have 4 blogs), and I participate in at least one Yahoo! Group a day, usually probably sending out 3 - 5 messages per day to participate in the discussions there.

Q: Your books are on LinkedIn and Facebook, and a little bird tells me that you've got a Twitter one coming out too. Why these three?

A: I started with the LinkedIn book because I blog to professionals who are concerned about their careers (they might be in transition, or know they will be in a year or two). I figured a book would be a better format to deliver the information than a string of, say, 100 blog posts. I was amazed at what happens once you become a "published author," and decided to coauther Facebook.

I chose Facebook because it gets so much traction - there are tens of millions of active users there, and many professionals are wondering if they should be there, and what they should do there. It was a natural second choice for my audience, even though I swore I'd never write another book.

My third book (no more swearing!) is on Twitter because it is such an amazing place to engage with other professionals. The communications there are very authentic and transparent, and I think it's an excellent environment to help a professional develop their brand, subject matter expertise, grow and nurture their network, and more. I see it as a tool for professionals.

Each of these three environments are complementary, and helpful in career management. I wrote the book in a non-career voice, so it applies to either those in transition or working professionals and marketers wondering what they could/should do.

Q: Books tend to have a general theme or approach to them. For example, the Dummies series is focused on making things simple enough for, well, a dummy. Tell us what the theme is for your series and how you arrived at it?

A: My titles include " - Now What???" ... the idea is that I'm here, but I have no idea what to do! Some people are fine with the technology, the buttons and links and interface, but they really don't get the point of the system, or understand where to derive value. My intention was to share concepts and techniques (two different things) with the reader so that they could (a) wrap their brain around the tool, and (b) know what they could specifically do as part of their online strategy.

How did I arrive at it? Dumb luck. We (my publisher (happyabout.info), my executive editor (Scott Allen) and I) brainstormed various names, but this one just kept coming back at me. Interestingly, I did not know it was going to become a series, but the "Now What?" concept really resonates with a lot of people.

Q: Tell us something we didn't know about LinkedIn! For that matter, how many people are you linked to on LinkedIn?

A: Something you might not realize about LinkedIn is that it's quite a versatile tool, providing value for you no matter what you do (as long as your work involves other people). It's clearly a great tool for recruiters and bus dev professionals, but it's also a great tool for the business traveler, college student, professor, author, lawyer, etc.

There is value here to be found, you just have to figure out what your objectives are and figure out how to achieve those objectives. I rarely invite people to connect with me on LinkedIn, and don't use it the same way a bus dev person would, so I'm happy to say my connections number is still in the 3-figure range. When I hit 4 figures I'm going to write a post on my JibberJobber blog about how I feel dirty J

Q: Same question, but about Facebook.

A: There are two interesting ideas surrounding Facebook on the top of my mind. First, it's okay, expected and accepted to share your personality there (unlike LinkedIn). I think this throws people off a little when they first look at profiles, but that's just part of the norm on Facebook. Second, I'm not sure if this is still true but recently the fastest growing demographic on Facebook was twenty-five year olds and older.

This isn't just a place for college kids to put dumb pictures up, there are a lot of professionals there. Again, my Facebook Friends are in the triple digits, and MOST of them have been out of school for quite a while!

Q: Now you're adding a book on Twitter. What surprised you about Twitter once you really started to dig into it?

A: I'm always surprised when I tweet something and I get responses. I regularly think "people are really reading what I'm putting here??" It's an engaging crowd, and an excellent place to throw ideas and questions out. I've had a number of experiences when I've needed ideas, sources, links or information and I post it as a question in Twitter.

When I had 300 followers, or 900 followers, I have had awesome, authoritative responses. I was also amazed that I could communicate with someone on Twitter when they wouldn't e-mail me. For some people it's become a communication means of choice, and while your e-mail might sit in their inbox for weeks, they'll respond rather quickly to a tweet. Amazing.

Q: So what do you do when you aren't writing or blogging?

A: Actually, my day job is running JibberJobber.com, which is a website that allows you to manage and track data important to your career. When I was in a job search I realized tracking all this stuff on a spreadsheet sucks, and why couldn't a job seeker have a more powerful toolset?

LinkedIn does a small part of what I needed - I was looking for something like Salesforce for the job seeker - and decided to build my own. JibberJobber is my day job, and I steal quiet times to work on my writing projects.

Thanks for your insight, Jason! You can find Jason on Twitter by looking for @JasonAlba.

Colorado Biz Buzz is hiring field marketers throughout Colorado

I am posting this job listing on behalf of my friend Ashley Kingsley, who is helping launch a site that will give us Coloradoans a directory of restaurants, theaters, nightclubs, art festivals and other events and venues, all with individual reviews by people like you. This can be full or part time, and sounds like it could be really fun if you like to travel and explore the state. Here's what she says about the position (contact info is at the end):

---

We are launching a new website in Denver in late August that is designed to operate like a search engine for COLORADO! Not only can you search any business within 5-100 miles of your zip code, you can make educated decisions when choosing who to do business with based on consumer reviews.

We are looking for Field Marketers to get out and about with laptops provided by the company and get reviews from people that are local to Colorado. We are populating the site with consumer reviews before launch!

We are hiring 5 more people (we already have 10) to join the team!

WHAT WE ARE LOOKING FOR:

• Natural Leaders
• People that know how to "read" a situation and make decisions based on their surroundings. IE: locations, demographics, and know how to assess a situation.
• Familiar with Grassroots Marketing & Word of Mouth Marketing
• Computer Savvy
• Punctual, Reliable, with a strong desire to succeed
• People who KNOW Denver, surround areas
• Must have car/Bike
• Self-Motivated

WHO WE ARE:
We are owned by a company out of Charleston, South Carolina. We are part of a big media conglomerate with Radio/TV/Newspapers all over the country. Our website is Colorado Biz Buzz.com (please surf and do a few reviews!)

We have over 600 employees in SC and we have 8 here in Denver. This position will go through September and pays $12/hour + incentives based on performance. We also pay $0.34 on the mile (only when a designated location you are sent to does not work out) we pay any extra travel you incur when we send you to a new location. You will also be reimbursed for parking cost for every hour that your work. If you work an 8 hour shift and have to plug a meter / or park in a paid parking lot- you get $1 per hour for every hour your work.

We are looking for full time/part time and people (based on performance) can travel into Fort Collins, Durango, Colorado Springs, Boulder, etc. to work for a few days on obtaining reviews for these regions of Colorado!

This is a FUN position as well as a challenging position! You are sent to festivals, parks, farmer's markets, pools, dog parks, malls, etc.

Please send cover letter along with your resume to ashley at coloradobizbuzz.com

---

Final note from Dave: As they're hoping to hire the entire team by the end of July, 2008, I'll likely delete this posting once Ashley tells me the positions are filled.

Hey DirecTV! Lying to customers isn't a good way to drive business!

I'm incensed, and I don't mind saying it here on my blog. I came home from a busy day yesterday to find a flier taped to my door handle that started out with the following:

"Attention Resident,

The Feds are mandating everyone broadcast in digital in just a few short months! DirecTV is 100% digital now. If you don't upgrade, all you will see is snow!"

Mine was the wrong door to put this flier on because I am very familiar with the transition to Digital TV and have even written about who needs a digital TV converter box.

And, to be blunt, their flier is at best remarkably deceptive and at worst? An outright lie.

It is true that we are transitioning to an all-digital broadcast system in early 2009 (with some exceptions for smaller, local, public service and rural channels) but no-one needs to "upgrade", which implies the outlay of a significant amount of money. Indeed, after rebates, most people with older TVs should be able to pick up a digital converter box from Circuit City, Best Buy or similar for about $40 one-time cost.

Most TVs don't need these boxes, though. To quote the gov't:

"If you have a digital television (a TV with a built-in digital tuner), you are already prepared for the DTV transition, and can enjoy the benefits of digital broadcasting today.... if you use a digital-to-analog converter box, you will still need to use an antenna to receive DTV signals. It is also important to know that if your television currently receives good quality reception on analog channels 2-51 with a broadcast antenna, it should be able to receive digital television signals, including high definition television (HDTV) signals, with the same broadcast antenna. You do not need to purchase a 'DTV antenna' or an 'HDTV antenna' to receive DTV or HDTV signals."

Let me reiterate those important points: even if you're using a terrestrial antenna for your TV, if you're hooked up to a TV with a built-in tuner, you're good to go. Even if not, you don't need any sort of cable or satellite service to be able to receive the new all-digital programming, even HDTV programming.

Certainly nothing explained in the flier I had taped to my door yesterday by a local DirecTV affiliate.

So what's the story, DirecTV? Looks to me like an affiliate of yours is really pushing the envelope, selling fear and misinformation. Is this a good, ethical way to drive business?

I don't think so.

A few grammatical pet peeves

First, let me put in a disclaimer, because I know some people are going to criticize me about this post. I have been involved with the Internet long enough to both remember the spelling nazis and dislike them immensely. If you were involved with Usenet discussion boards, you'll know what I'm talking about. You still occasionally see a discussion collapse into pointless flames about spelling and grammar, and perhaps what I'm writing falls into that category too. If so, move along, nothing to see here. :-)

Even in light of that disclaimer, however, when I was reading my morning allotment of RSS feeds I couldn't help cringe when someone who should know better posted that

    "WordPress today announced that it's just released it's newest version: WordPress 2.6."

Upon reflection I realized that this particular blogger frequently mistakes "its" for "it's" and while it could be a stylistic thing or an affectation, odds were better that the author simply doesn't know a simple rule to differentiate the two.

Here it is, Dave's rule for differentiating usage: "it's" is short for "it is".

That's it. Now, consider the same sentence with each occurrence of the contraction "it's" rewritten:

    "WordPress today announced that it is just released it is newest version: WordPress 2.6."

Doesn't make much sense. In fact, the first occurrence should be "it has", which can ostensibly be shortened to "it's" too, but the second is just wrong and should be "its".

My rewrite of this sentence, improving it a little bit:

    "WordPress today announced that it has just released its newest version: WordPress 2.6."

Actually, if I were going to blog about the new WordPress release, I would rephrase it to sidestep this issue entirely:

    "WordPress today announced the release of WordPress 2.6, the latest version of the popular blogging utility."

My point isn't to edit this sentence to death (or is it too late? :-) but to point out that while the blogosphere tends to be characterized by informal prose, basic spelling and grammatical errors still reflect poorly on the author.

And while I'm on this particular soapbox, I encourage you to learn the difference between ensure and insure. This is a nuance that most ad copy writers seem to miss entirely and not a week goes by that I don't see "insure" misused in print marketing collateral.

One more, since I'm on a roll! Your versus you're. Again, every time you see an apostrophe -- a contraction -- spell it out to ensure [not "insure"!] that you're [not "your"!] using it correctly. "You're" is "you are".

A good writing tip is to always read your prose out loud to see if it "sounds wrong". If you think there's something odd about the voice or tense, there probably is!

Finally, I'm not alone in my grammatical rant. Check out these five mistakes that make you look dumb from CopyBlogger, ten flagrant grammar errors from Jody Gilbert at CNet and how poor spelling and grammar can cost you from Elizabeth Charles.

Interestingly, I also asked the Twitter community how they would rewrite that particular sentence to make it grammatically correct and only one person, 11_15_Media, actually suggested something that was correct: "Today, Wordpress announces the release of its newest version, Wordpress 2.6." Nicely done.

How to get on my radar screen, a short case study

This is rather a fun way to demonstrate one way that, for an investment of $4.50, this group of entrepreneurs has not only gotten on my proverbial radar screen, but have learned a bit about how to pitch effectively too.

It started with them buying me a cup of chai via my Ask Dave Taylor tech support site, and including this note:

Message:Hi Dave,
Love your site. It's got a lot of great Info that the everyday person can actually use!:). Check out our struggling new startup at http://www.oklandcomp.com. We have "Everyday items for everyday people at exceptional prices" and we want everyone to know it! ...
We'd love a plug! Enjoy your chai.

Just like in dating, when you're pitching your company, it's very important that you always speak positively about it, so here was my response:

Thanks. Instead of buying me a chai, though, try this pitch again. Tell me what's unique and interesting about your business, how you got into it, how you're growing it and why my readers would care. :-) Oh, and don't tell me that you're struggling. Tell me that you're excited about your growth curve or something. :-)

Luckily, they took my response in the spirit of assistance it was sent, and their response was a nice example of a positive, enthusiastic writeup of their business and how they got into it:

Well actually Dave, my partner and I are very excited about the website. It is allowing us to work on something together that allows us to spend more time with our families doing something we all really enjoy. Hopefully some day allowing me to walk away from the cube farm! My dad operated his own business in our back yard so I guess I have the entrepreneurial spirit in me. So while the store may be "struggling" at this point, we're not hungry yet...yet.

It all started out as a couple of Ebay stores that went reasonably well and my partner being downsized from IBM. Ebay just became a big rat race with the only real winner being Ebay! Now almost completely disillutioned with Ebay, we know we can do better for our customer on price and overall shopping experience.

Passing all those savings onto our customers - and yes a bit more to us as well, feels a lot better than handing it to a multi national bohemoth who constantly wants more. They've just gone waaay to far to increase their insatiable greed at the expense of the buyers! However, I digress. I still plan to operate on Ebay more as a secondary venue to promote the store. The exposure with Ebay obviously cannot be overlooked.

And to be honest, more so than the money generated, I get as much or more enjoyment from being able to provide our quality products (and they really are top of the line) to our customers delivered to their door, sometimes cheaper than they can buy them at big box retail outlet. The responses back from our customers to date has been fantastic. Our slogan - everyday items for everyday people at exceptional prices really is what drives us. We're not big box, We're not distant shareholders. We're grassroots, back to the mom and pop taking advantage of technology of the day.

Seeing tangible results of our efforts, slow as they may be, is also an incredibly satisfying. slowly increasing traffic, watching Google analytics 10 times a day to see if it is better than yesterday, tweaking of google ads and incorporation of Amazon referrals. It's all pretty amazing in a geeky sort of way.

So now that we have an operational site up and running (yes, admitedly there is much, much left to do on that front) we are focusing now on spreading the word - weighing pay per click advertising, trying to get a newsletter going and "sucking up" for back links :-)

All sucking up aside, your site really has been one of the best resources I have found for succinct, to the point tips without printing hundreds of pages of a pdf to get a few good tips elsewhere. I only recently found your blog and think it's great! While reading your SEO, ad click and articles of the like I find myself bookmarking many of them to go back and re read as I work on that topic.

So do you really blog from a Starbucks? Cool! maybe someday I'll move my cube to Starbucks and sell HD multi directional Antennas, Foodsavers and laptop sleeves from the back corner table! HA!

Robert Collins

I don't write this to get tons of people to buy me a chai, needless to say, but hopefully to illustrate the importance of putting your best foot forward and presenting your business well, whatever the venue. It's the mythical "elevator pitch" and it really is important that you can positively state your business goal or mission, buzzword free, in sixty seconds or less.

Incompatibility plagues the OpenID project

I'm busy writing a blog entry over on AskDaveTaylor.com about how to apply for an OpenID account and am both highly impressed by the project goals and appalled to see that when I use my new Yahoo OpenID to verify my identity on the Livejournal site that I get this error message:

What the heck, guys? When are any of these project teams going to learn that compatibility is more important than slick new features and that one glitch like this will sour users on a technology for years to come?

This highlights a huge challenge for the evolution of software projects: improving features and compatibility while not breaking things.

Clearly, we're still working on that issue...

Cool Event: Word of Mouth marketing seminar in Chicago

One of the highlights of The Aloha Summit a few months ago in Hawaii was having Andy Sernovitz beam in electronically and join us for an hour of discussion and insight. Andy should be a familiar name, he's the author of Word of Mouth Marketing.

This afternoon he just emailed me to let me know that he's hosting a small-group word of mouth marketing seminar in Chicago on July 30 and September 4, which is a cool opportunity for you to spend a day learning from an expert. It'll be a small class too: max of 50 people.

He describes it thusly:

• Master the five steps of word of mouth marketing
• Construct an action plan that your company can start using the very next day
• Get the same training that big corporations (Microsoft, TiVo, eBay) have received -- for a fraction of what they paid
• Know how to translate word of mouth marketing into real ROI
• Participate in an active, intense day of practical brainstorming (not boring theory)
• Learn from Andy Sernovitz, the guy who literally wrote the book on word of mouth marketing

Andy promises that attendees will learn a repeatable, proven marketing framework that is easy to execute, affordable, and provides measurable results within 60 days.

If I were based in Chicago, I'd definitely attend, but since I'm not, maybe you would be interested in going instead? You can learn more at events.gaspedal.com.

Oh! Andy's extending for a $250 discount for readers of my weblog, which is a nice additional perk. Just use discount code weloveintuitive when you register.

Speaker submissions invited for "Thin Air Summit" here in Colorado!

I find myself involved in the organization of three different conferences right now, Blogworld and New Media Expo 2008, the Thin Air Summit and ... well, a third event that I'm not quite ready to announce yet. :-)

Blogworld's call for speakers has passed, but the new event, the Thin Air Summit, just opened its doors for speaker proposals and I invite you to consider proposing a talk of your own (or a panel!) on a topic of interest to New Media and Web 2.0 folk. The conference will occur over the weekend of November 7-9, 2008 at the facilities of the Art Institute of Colorado.

Specifically:

"The format of The Thin Air Summit is a combination of panels and educational sessions. For the education sessions there are three tracks, text - e.g. blogging, online books and the like, audio - e.g. audio podcasts, podsafe music and video - e.g. video podcasts, live streaming video. These sessions will provide practical information relevant to creating better content in that particular medium. The panels will bring all three tracks together and be focused on new media topics that are relevant to all - both the practical, such as monetization, and the philosophical, such as What is New Media and Why is it Important.

Sound cool? I think it will be a nice event with a savvy audience and it's a huge bonus that we'll be hosting it here in Colorado, rather than having to fly to California, New York or some other far distant city! And it'll prove to be one of the premier new media networking events in Colorado this year too...

Interested in speaking? Please check out our Call for Speakers.

Hilarious "tombstoning" gaffe in local newspaper

This is a bit of newspaper business trivia, but us old media types pay attention to how things lay out together in a newspaper, where, say, a picture of a convicted child molester just happens to appear above a story about a local senator. No overt implication, just an unhappy or amusing juxtaposition.

In the newspaper biz, they call that "tombstoning" and today there's an awesome example of this very thing in online edition of the local paper:

Who would have thought that was what the Regents of the University of Colorado, Boulder had in mind when they opted to discuss the possibility of giving freshmen bicycles, though given the Bacchanalian nature of college nowadays, that's probably spot on.

Okay, okay, here's a slightly expanded view:

Of course you're now thinking "Holy cow! Every article in The Daily Camera is about sex!" given the new article of strippers versus golfers (is that going to be a bad made-for-tv movie soon?) and you'd be wrong, sorry to say, but not... entirely wrong.

Keep an eye out in your own newspaper for more examples of funny tombstoning. I bet you'll be surprised how often you encounter something amusing like this.

Disclaimer: I write a weekly column for the Daily Camera, so it's not like I don't like the newspaper and their editorial team... :-)

How do you ethically ask bloggers to write about your business?

A colleague I met at a recent networking event asked me something very interesting via email:

Is there a ethical way to ask bloggers to write about your business?

I've spent some time thinking about this question because my first response was a knee-jerk answer of "any way you ask someone to help you promote your business is ethical". But that's not true. Witness the waves of spam we receive every day from people who are following just that dictum.

On the other end of the spectrum, clearly if you never actually promote your business and just wait for those blogger-types to stumble across it and write about it is folly too. If you don't promote your business, chances are you don't have one after a while.

So the truth must lie somewhere in the middle, and there are indeed ethical and socially acceptable ways you can promote your business with bloggers.

I can then examine my inbox to see some examples, and one leaps out immediately: sending a press release or media announcement is rarely, if ever, a good solution. I would estimate that I read the headlines of less than 10% of the press releases I get, and less than 2% of them engage me enough -- or are targeted enough -- that I'll read a paragraph or two into the release itself. (remember too that I have years of experience sifting through press releases from my former life as a magazine editor)

Really, the best way to engage a blogger and let them know about your business is for you to participate in the discussion on their blog then, once you've established yourself as a commentator, open up a private channel of communication with them via email and begin to introduce your business.

I'm reminded of a Godfather type of scene, where I'd be whispering with some sort of American-Italian accent, "you gotta pay your respects before you can get the attention of the Don. Move too fast and, well, there's gunna be trouble..."

But then again, there are likely many other ways to approach bloggers effectively to promote your business too. Dear reader, perhaps you can share one or two of your best practices in this regard?

Interview with Kenneth Lin, CEO of Credit Karma

When my friend Melissa told me she was helping with a new Web site, Credit Karma, I was rather surprised to hear about it. I mean, another site about credit scores? On request, she arranged for me to send some questions along to the CEO, Kenneth Lin, and here are my pointed questions and his responses.

Q: Another online credit reporting site? What's new?

Credit fatigue is understandable - it seems that you hear about the importance of credit everywhere you turn. But the truth is that credit, and subsequently your credit score, is the single most important financial indicator used by lenders, and in today's economy it's more relevant than ever.

The great thing about it is that you can actually control your credit score - you can protect and improve it with just some basic knowledge and tools. The problem is that consumers just haven't had access to the right kind of tools before.

Credit Karma helps consumers monitor, improve and leverage their credit. We are the only service that allows people to pull their credit score as often as they need for free. We have also built simulators and tools that help them understand how specific actions such as opening or closing a line of credit will affect their score. And finally, we bring them preferred pricing offers based on the strength of their score that they can also rate as a community. Most importantly, we never share consumers' information.

Q: I think there's a lot of confusion in the consumer space vis-à-vis credit scores. Federal law requires that credit reporting agencies make your report available to you every 12 months or any time you have a credit app denied. Why Credit Karma?

We absolutely agree that there's a lot of confusion in the marketplace. That's why we're in this business: to help consumers better understand their credit and how to leverage it for their advantage.

Between the federal mandate, pay-for-score services, and identity theft protection companies, consumers are bombarded with messages about the importance of credit scores. The good thing is that consumers are now hyper-aware and realize they need to know their score. The challenge is that consumers should be obtaining their score about once a month in order to catch any changes caused by missed bill payments, an incident of identity theft or similar...and they couldn't do that before Credit Karma.

Not only do we let them access their score as often as they'd like for free, but we also provide simulators and information to help them understand the best way to improve their score and even predict what it will be as a result of a specific behavior. Finally, we help them obtain preferred pricing on products they desire as a result of that score. It's a completely free and transparent way for consumers to better manage and leverage their credit.

Q: What's your background in finance and banking and what attracted you to credit scores?

I've been in the industry for a number of years. I've worked for credit card companies, led marketing teams at both Upromise and E-LOAN, and even launched my own online marketing analytics firm before founding Credit Karma. All of this has given me a deep understanding of how credit works and how lenders use credit data to make lending decisions.

My inspiration stems from my experience at both Upromise and E-LOAN, two companies with a pro-consumer mission that aimed to transform an industry and help consumers in the process. I realized then that consumers had only the most basic awareness of their credit score and that the opportunity existed to build a business on helping them learn more and be better informed credit customers. Everything we do at Credit Karma - even the way in which we make money - is done with a consumer's best interests in mind.

Q: Credit scores rarely take into account life stories. How are you going to help people manage their credit score and, ideally, improve it so they have greater access to financing and mortgage options?

Our first step is to help people access it and then to help them understand what it means by sharing information resources and comparing their score to others in their age, geographic or similar groups. Just this first step is important because it often inspires them to try and improve it.

We help them improve their score through simulators that can instruct personal behavior. For example, if you're late on a major credit card, we can help you predict what your score will be by taking care of that outstanding balance. Or perhaps you'd benefit by taking out another revolving line of credit. The point is to give you tangible things that will make a difference so you can begin to adjust your behavior. For most people, there is a number they need to reach so it's easy for them to create a plan and stick to it.

Q: How does Credit Karma make money? And is there a tension and potential conflict between offering up "pro-consumer" advice and information while simultaneously possibly helping people dig themselves deeper with credit card offers?

Our business model relies on giving consumers good offers through our advertisers. We need to provide them with relevant, real and compelling pricing offers. There is no tension in this model because we take our pro-consumer bent seriously. We do not accept advertising or work with companies that take advantage of consumers. You will never see ads from payday lending companies or others who perpetuate debt and poor credit. And because we allow users to rate offers and help us fine-tune our offering for other consumers similar to them, we can isolate only those offers that are actually useful and relevant. It's a highly efficient process both for our users and for the advertisers.

Q: What is the return rate for web customers?

The return rates vary, and really depend on whether a consumer is getting ready to make a credit-based purchase. We have visitors that check almost every day and those who check once every couple of months. On average, we see about 3 visits per month per active user.

We recommend that consumers check their score about once a month. Our empirical data shows that a score changes about once every 30 days, which makes sense because it mirrors most billing cycles. We encourage users to check once a month so that they can determine if they accidentally missed a bill or even if there is unauthorized activity on their credit file.

Q: Are there privacy concerns? Are you exposing consumer credit scores to sponsors, how do consumers with high credit scores get access to the offers?

We never share information with sponsors or advertisers. We take our pledge to consumers seriously and have built in redundant layers of security and policies to ensure that their information remains private. You'll see that much of the feedback from consumers about Credit Karma attests to this. All of our pricing offers are one-way offers based on credit score ranges, not actual scores or individuals. A sponsor never knows who is receiving the offer and has no way to contact that person directly. We make sure that ultimate control always resides with the consumer.

What do you think, reader? Is there a compelling case for Credit Karma in the online credit and personal finance space?

Major appliances are still not purchased online

Reading the latest issue of Consumer Electronics publication TWICE I came across their list of the top 100 Major Appliance Retailers and was struck by how there are no online companies on the list.

There are companies that have a significant online presence, of course, like Sears, but I think it's safe to say that unlike consumer electronics purchasing habits, major appliances (the industry calls the category "majapp", by the way) are still purchased based on in-store discussions with salespeople and hands-on experience.

The list of top Majapp retailers:

1. Sears, with $8.3 billion in major appliance sales in 2007 (a drop of 7.3% from their 2006 sales)
2. Lowe's, with $4.3 billion in majapp sales (an increase of 3.1% over their 2006 sales)
3. Home Depot, with $3.8 billion in sales (an increase in 2.3% from 2006 sales)
4. Best Buy, with $1.9 billion in sales (an impressive increase of 8.3% over 2006 sales. Best Buy is really becoming a powerhouse in both majapp and consumer electronics sales!)
5. Wal*Mart, with $713 million in sales (an increase of 5.1% over 2006)
6. P.C. Richard & Son, with $602 million in sales (a drop of 4.1% from 2006 sales)
7. hhgregg, with $486 million in sales (a staggering increase of 36.6% over 2006 sales)
8. BrandsMart, with $269 million in sales (a decrease of 2.7% from 2006 sales)
9. Conn's, with $224 million in sales (a 3.0% decrease over 2006 sales)
10. Costco Wholesale, with $211 million in sales (an increase of 0.9% over 2006 sales figures)

The rest of the top 25? Pacific Sales Kitchen & Bath Centers, Target, ABC Warehouse, ABT Electronics and Appliances, Menards, Sam's Club, EXPO Design CEnter, R.C. Willey Home Furnishings, American TV & Appliances, Nebraska Furniture Mart, The Great Indoors, Appliance Direct, Kmart, Fry's Electronics and Grants Appliance.

Somehow, in 2008 I expect to see some sort of company like "Appliances Online" or even Amazon show up on the top 25 list (after all, Grants Appliance is on the list with only $77 million in annual major appliance sales)...

Is it possible that major appliances will always be purchased primarily through a physical storefront, perhaps simply due to the complexity of delivery and installation? What do you think?

Yahoo is still suffering from lack of coherent vision

I write this as I'm listening to Greg Cohn from Yahoo (Nasdaq: YHOO) talk about their future vision for the corporation: "Yahoo is the social network" and the Yahoo! Open Strategy (aka Yahoo OS). Interesting talk, but I can't help but thinking about the organizational challenges that they face...

More than anything it really strikes me that the company is so deeply organized into silos, departments and divisions that it's possible that even were Yahoo to learn how to integrate things together and cross-promote it might never be successful at creating a single, unified company at this point in its history.

Greg explains on his blog that Yahoo OS is a cool way to open up parts of the Yahoo network to third parties, just as its Search Monkey is opening up search to third parties too, through plug-ins that affect search results. That's a step in teh right direction, but maybe not: Given the company already has dozens upon dozens of properties, does it really need to open things up to hundreds of additional properties like Blogger, Facebook and Twitter?

The challenge is that Yahoo has become too diverse a company. I mean, here's just a short list of some of the more popular properties under the Yahoo umbrella, as gleaned from the 2007 Annual Report:

• Flickr - photo sharing and management
• HotJobs - classified jobs site
• Geocities - entry-level user home pages and profiles
• del.icio.us - shared bookmark and online site discovery tool
• Musicmatch - music discovery and industry news
• Yahoo! Travel - fly to nice places, etc
• Yahoo Shopping - huge aggregation of Yahoo Store-based online shops
• Yahoo Personals - one of the top dating and personals sites
• Yahoo Finance - investor and research information
• Yahoo Maps - online mapping service
• Rivals.com - college sports team information
• Zimbra - business emial service
• Kelkoo - Yahoo Shopping for overseas
• Yahoo Mail - popular web-based email service
• Yahoo Messenger - one of the most popular instant messenger services

... and on and on. It's staggering, really, and while you may think "Oh, Yahoo Mail and Yahoo Search are the same company", they really are separate divisions, just as Gmail and Google Search are only loosely affiliated.

I am well aware that one of the greatest problems in a large company is that, well, it's a large company. The logistical challenges of integrating a wide variety of quasi-unaffiliated departments is vast, and with constant acquisitions, it's even worse. This can be solved by strong management from the top, a strong, coherent, single unified direction. What Scott McNealy of Sun Microsystems (Nasdaq: JAVA) famously and aptly described as "putting all your wood behind one arrowhead".

One of the greatest problems I see with Yahoo is the recently ended tenure of Terry Semel, who did his very best to turn Yahoo, an Internet property, into Yahoo Hollywood, a new generation media company built around what I can only imagine was the inspiration of the org charts of companies like Warner Brothers and Paramount. Not good. Film companies have a small number of large bets and only need a few to be home runs, but a film company with hundreds, or thousands of tiny properties? No go.

Now that Terry's out and Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang is back running the company, and now that they've survived the Microsoft blitzkrieg and are trying to weather Carl Icahn's newest attack, the question remains: can Yahoo consolidate, find a single vision to unify its widely diverse offerings, and become a strong competitor in an ever-changing marketplace?

We'll have to wait and see.

Finding live Euro 2008 Soccer Championship coverage online

I admit it, I'm rather technologically limited. While I might have most of the top gadgets in the world, a top-end Blu-Ray player, HDTV, and more, what I don't have is cable TV, Dish Network or any other way to get "TV" programming. Which is rarely an issue for me other than when something like Euro 2008 Championship, one of the very best soccer competitions in the world (while we wait for FIFA World Cup 2010 to roll around).

Since we are in the Internet age, I decided that I'd dig around and see if I could find a site where I could ideally watch live video coverage of the Euro 2008 games, or, worst case, watch video replays or even highlights of the best action in specific matches.

After digging and digging, I have come to the conclusion that it's just not there. In fact, not only is there no live Euro 2008 coverage online, there are a lot of companies taking advantage of the curiosity of football fans to sell things in what might not be an entirely ethical manner.

I mean, it's no surprise to search Google for something like Watch European Soccer Championship, click on an advert, and end up at a "landing page" selling some doubtless-illegal unauthorized satellite program capture device like this one, but what is surprising is when companies like ESPN (a Disney (NYSE:DIS) company, in case you're not keeping track) resorts to misdirection as a sales tool.

What do I mean? Check this out...

Sounds like what I want, right? Clicking through from this Google AdWords ad, however, and you end up here:

And now you can see the misdirection. This isn't free live video of Euro 2008, it's an offer to have free streaming if you already pay for their channel on your existing broadcast service or have a specific Internet high speed access provider.

Even that wouldn't be a complete show-stopper if they had a "click here and sign up for our on-line only access pass, only $4.99/month". I'd click, I'd sign up, I'd pay. But there isn't an option for that, and so, like doubtless many other football (sorry, soccer) fans worldwide, I am left unable to watch even the highlights on my computer.

And yet... with the Summer Olympics coming in less than two months, I am really surprised how little major sporting events are utilizing Internet video capabilities, if at all.

One simple idea: A virtual video control room, where you could let viewers choose their favorite camera angle or commentator, or - and this has historically been the Achilles heel of the Olympics coverage in the United States - turn off the commentators entirely. Tell me that wouldn't be a cool thing to try out.

Would I pay for this service? You bet. Wouldn't you?

And yet, it's 2008 and I still can't even pay to watch Euro 2008 matches on my computer.

Top Twenty Consumer Electronics Retailers of 2007

I think you might well be surprised by the list, as created by TWICE, the industry publication of record for the consumer electronics industry. Comments in italics are my own additions to the list:

#1: Best Buy, with 917 stores, sales increased 11.1% 2006 to 2007.

No surprise here. Best Buy has done a masterful job of marketing, retailing and store design. There really is no competition for them at this point in terms of stand-alone companies that have good selection, good brands and good employees.

#2: Wal-Mart, with 3414 stores and 22.7% increase in sales.

Think about that. Wal-Mart is already a huge retail presence, the 1600 pound gorilla and the single largest retail company in the United States. Between 2006 and 2007 their retail sales increased almost 23%. That's incredible. If there's one store that is a threat to the existing hegemony of CE retail, it's Wal-Mart, a company that generally tends to crush any niche it sets its sights on anyway (for example, groceries).

#3: Circuit City, with 684 stores and a 5.9% decrease in sales.

It's that decrease that tells you all you need to know about why Circuit City is not a healthy company and why firms like Blockbuster are circling for the kill (and assets). I've written about this before: The Logic of Blockbuster buying Circuit City.

#4: Dell, with 1 store and approximately even sales 2006 to 2007.

Honestly, I never put two and two together and realized that Dell Computer would be one of the top five CE retailers in the United States. But sales in 2007 were $7.088 billion which is a whole lotta laptops!

#5: Target, with 1591 stores and a 23.8% increase in sales.

Just as Wal-Mart represents a huge threat to the world of retail CE, so does Target, with its more upscale, fashionable positioning in the marketplace and well-designed electronics area. I know that I often find myself their when I want small CE devices and add-ons.

#6: Costco Wholesale, with 389 stores and a 28.6% increase in sales.

Holy cow, that's almost a 30% increase in CE sales from 2006. Yet it's no surprise: as consumer electronics continue to devolve into commodities that a company whose entire focus is on cheap commodity sales should rise to prominence. This also really makes you wonder how much people care about selection, because Costco might have good prices, but their selection and variety stinks. But, with $4.9 billion in CE sales, apparently people don't really care that much.

#7: Gamestop, with 4008 stores and an increase of 32.3% in sales.

Yep, Gamestop. That dorky video game retail outlet in the Mall has an impressive 4000+ outlets and clearly can thank Nintendo for the Wii and Sony for the Playstation-3 for contributing to their superb results in 2007.

#8: Apple Retail Stores, with 177 stores and a 40.5% increase in sales.

It wasn't too many years ago that Apple opened its first retail store in Palo Alto, California, and industry analysts said it'd fail. I mean, people want choices and selection, not a uni-vendor store. Right? Wrong. Very wrong. What's most impressive is that Apple has achieved an aggregate $4.079 billion in sales with only 177 stores. That's a staggering per-store revenue.

#9: RadioShack, with 4447 stores and a decrease of 10.8% in sales.

Visiting a RadioShack is always somehow like traveling back in time to the CE world of the 80s where unknown gizmos and slick salespeople were what counted, not the shiny techno world of Best Buy / Apple. RadioShack is unquestionably on a long, slow burn and are finding it increasingly difficult to remain relevant in the twenty-first century.

#10: Sears, with 1765 stores and a sales increase of 1.9%.

Another die-hard, Sears is perhaps the greatest competitor to Wal-Mart in terms of the demographic and socio-economic customer base. When was the last time you bought something at Sears, though?

And, just for completeness, here are #11-20: Sam's Club, Amazon.com, CompUSA (now defunct), Fry's Electronics, Newegg.com, Office Depot, Staples, Army-Air Force Exchange, Toys R Us and Micro Center.

What I find most interesting about this list is how few online retailers are in the top ten, but how most of the next grouping, #11-20, are almost all online retailers. It's a testament to the kinesthetic importance of retail outlets in the world of consumer electronics too: people can buy their CE from an online outlet -- as I did my Sony HDTV, when I bought it from Amazon.com -- but they still want to touch it first, to see it and reassure themselves that it's worth the investment.

I imagine that 2008 or, perhaps, 2009, will see RadioShack and Sears off the top ten, replaced by Amazon.com and, perhaps, Fry's Electronics. And sales overall? Up, up, up: 2006 total aggregate CE sales were $114.5 billion and 2007 sales were $125.3 billion. That's a big upward trend and even with a weaker economy I see no reason not to expect continued growth as HDDVD is phased out, Blu-Ray becomes more popular and the cut-off of analog-only TV approaches ever closer.

What do you think, dear reader?

Warner experiments with theatrical + DVD hybrid release for "Watchmen"

Fascinating story in the New York Times [free reg required] yesterday about Warner Brothers Entertainment, Inc. and how it's trying to wrestle with the latest trends in theatrical releases, where a decline of DVD sales is terrifying everyone in the industry, an industry where so much of the revenue from a film project is expected from just those sales.

How important is this revenue? The Times reports that up to 70% of movie revenue comes from DVD sales, depending on the release and the quality of the disk packaging. You just know that movies like Iron Man and, perhaps to a lesser extent, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull are going to enjoy terrific DVD sales when released.

Following in the footsteps of many successful graphic novel adaptations for the big screen (think Sin City, a film I intensely disliked, 300, a film I thought was great fun, and even the latest dark, brooding Batman films based more on the oevre of graphic novels than the goofy mythos of "The Batman") Warner is releasing Watchmen based on the complicated but highly popular graphic novel series of the same name.

But what's so darn interesting is that they are simultaneously going to also be releasing a second Watchmen movie directly to video for retail release just five days after the film opens (e.g. after opening weekend), entitled Tales of the Black Freighter. As the NYT explains, "Tales" will "follow a side Watchmen storyline about a shipwreck".

Unfamiliar with the Watchmen series? Here's the synopsis of the movie, as reported on IMDB: "When an ex-superhero has been murdered, a vigilante named Rorshach begins an investigation into the murder, which begins to lead to a much more terrifying conclusion. And also uncovers a plot to discredit and murder various heroes. Rorschach discovers a far wider ranging conspiracy involving his colleagues' past which could completely change the course of history."

Check out the photo on the right: that's a scene from the Watchmen movie wherein actor Jesse Reid is actually sitting and reading, you guessed it, Tales of the Black Freighter. I'm reminded of The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension, wherein the secondary characters are frequently seen reading Banzai comic books which, by coincidence, I also have on my shelf.

Nonetheless, kudos to Warner for risking a few million on the production of this secondary film and testing the waters to see if long, complicated stories can be spread across both a theatrical release and a commercial DVD made available simultaneously.

The next step they should consider is offering some sort of coupon, discount or rebate so that people who see the theatrical Watchmen movie can get a price break (or extra goodies) if they also purchase Tales of the Black Freighter. Now that would be an awesome experiment!

By the way, if I can be a bit catty, Warner also complains in the Times piece about soft DVD sales of Will Smith's latest movie, I Am Legend without bothering to mention that it just wasn't that good a movie and that once you got over the scary vampire aspect, not a very interesting storyline either. This is consistent with MPAA strategy, as far as I can remember, where it complains about sales -- usually in the context of "how much they've lost to file sharing" -- without ever acknowledging that perhaps the quality of the product is suffering. This also factors into the industry complaints of poor sales with Blu-Ray releases: how many films are on the shelf that are worth $25+ per disk, when the DVD is often less than half that price and looks pretty darn good on modern players anyway?

I applaud Warner for trying something new and am excited to see how the market receives this experimental dual-release of Watchmen and Tales of the Black Freighter.

Join the Stompernet Internet business mastermind portal today!

I spent quite a bit of time yesterday writing about why I'm a faculty member of Stompernet and why it's your best bet for learning online marketing and Internet business so today I just want to put up a few quick additional links. First off, if you're ready, don't waste time, just do this:

    Sign up for Stompernet Now

In particular, the word I hear from Andy Jenkins, head of Stompernet, is that "I don't know how long the shopping cart will be open, because we're kind of like a school: we strive to keep our "class sizes" small so that we can provide the attention that our members deserve. So when we reach our maximum, I'm going to shut it down."

Andy's a take-no-prisoners sort of guy, so I believe him when he says that. No scam, no tricks, just a quota of new people and when we attain it, the door will close again.

I'm digging around and will embed a video here shortly, but in the meantime, I suggest that if you're still on the fence, you check out this video to learn more about what you can learn and gain from being a member.

I'll hope to see you there!

Join Stompernet, learn everything about Internet marketing

A few years ago I jumped headfirst into the world of Internet marketing, speaking at a variety of conferences that ranged from pretty good to scary awful pitchfests where audience members apparently willingly took a few days out of their lives to sit passively while hucksters aggressively sold the latest 21st century snake oil from the stage.

Now, before I get into too much trouble, I learned a lot from the experience, made some really splendid friends, and connected with some online business entrepreneurs that I'd never had met otherwise. Just as importantly, I learned that making money online doesn't inherently sully the purity of the Internet.

Nonetheless I knew fairly quickly that I'm not really cut out for the marketing event circuit, so it was with great relief when my friends Andy Jenkins and Brad Fallon asked me to get involved with a new idea in the space, Stompernet. Their vision: get all the smartest people in the same room and sell access passes, but not to hear pitches, but rather to learn from the experts.

I can tell you that Stompernet has shaken up the world of Internet Marketing, because for the cost of one person's unproven package, you can sign up for a few months of access to everyone in the Stompernet community. Sounds like a better deal, doesn't it? The economic case is obvious and with hundreds of videos, thousands of discussion threads, weekly faculty conference calls and webinars, on-ground events every 3-4 months, and much much more, it's one heck of a deal.

Problem is, Stompernet's been closed to new members for months and months now, which is one reason I haven't written about it too much. No point in getting you cranky! :-) Tomorrow, however, 22 May, 2008, the door will open again.

Not sure about Stompernet? I encourage you to check out some of our member testimonials?

I know you won't regret it!

Blockbuster swings to profit! Who'd have thought it?

In the age of video on demand, advertisements touting that Netflix (Nasdaq: NFLX) has rented over two billion movies, the pervasiveness of peer to peer (p2p) networks, and the general drum-beat of the demise of video rental, today's earnings report from Blockbuster (NYSE: BBI) is a shocker:

"Blockbuster Inc., swung to a first-quarter profit amid prior-year termination fees as domestic same-store sales grew for the first time in five years, though total revenue fell amid a decrease in company-owned stores."

(Source: WSJ)

The domestic Blockbuster results -- which have improved for the first time in the last five years -- were driven by a 20% jump in same-store merchandise sales.

Not rentals. Not through-the-mail rentals, even. By in-store merchandise sales.

Which makes sense. Nowadays if you want to buy a DVD and you want to get it now, where do you go? Wal-Mart or Target? Or Blockbuster, where they always seem to have things on sale because they're selling lightly used rental disks for $5-$8/each? (heck, I've bought DVDs at Blockbuster for $1.99, which is cheaper than renting the movie for a week!)

Anyway, fascinating news. Thoughts?

This is how participatory mainstream media should work

I have watched with growing disappointment as the trolls and jerks who are automatically screened from most blogs through splendid collaborative tools like Akismet have found a new home in the comments section of the local newspaper here in Boulder, the Daily Camera. Far from illuminating the story and adding thoughtful, intelligent commentary, too many comments are like these:

[On a story about a party gone wrong at the University of Colorado] "CU Meat heads. Like trash in the streets, the cretins can always be counted upon to show up and leave their greasy residues."

[On a story about an apartment building burning down] "Wow, a burning bush. If you look closely at the smoke on the wall, you can see a face looking back at you. This whole thing is divine."

"Is it Clinton's fault yet? I just got here."

"Wow, there are a lot of jerks posting tonight."

These are tame. The Daily Camera staff has to be rather vigilant, and it's quite common to see a discussion where 25% or more of the comments are "(This comment was removed by the site staff.)"

Nonetheless, it's a fine line between having coherent editorial control, managing the content of a site and its tone and censorship, and it's darn difficult to impose any sort of discourse quality metrics. Imagine a site that said "Note: sarcasm is not allowed."

That's a cause of frustration and too many people I talk with here in Boulder tell me that they skip the comments attached to articles on the Daily Camera's Web site because of the tone, hostility and generally poor discourse.

And that's too bad - though understandable - because they wouldn't see the great example of participatory citizen media in one of the latest stories on the site, a story about a boy being knocked off his bike by an RV just up the street from my place. A terrible story with a good ending: the boy is actually in good shape and his primary injury appears to be abrasion wounds from being dragged by the vehicle.

Within all the asinine comments about how bikers in Boulder are arrogant and don't follow the rules of the road are two comments worth pulling out, however:

"Thanks to those who have showed support. I am the boys father, and I want to report that he is currently in the hospital, and he is going to be okay. He fractured an ankle, has a nice quarter sized chunk missing from his right elbow, and has MASSIVE road rash, mostly on his back and shoulders. Will probably be in there for a couple days. He didn't stop at the stop sign, he looked right, there was a truck with a trailer parked to the left (possibly illegally that close to an intersection) that he pulled past and was hit. Frankly, they thought the helmet saved his life."

and then, just a few comments later:

"I wish to second the fact that the driver was NOT going 40 mph. I spoke to a witness-I am not sure about a parked truck with trailer. I think that person stopped AFTER the accident to try and help. Thank you, people for all the help received at the time. The boy was at my house when this happened."

How often do you get to read a news report and then see additional information from two of the key players in the story? In this case, while we didn't hear from the injured boy or the driver of the RV, we did get candid comments from the boy's father and the mother of the other boy whose house the injured boy had been visiting.

Imagine this ability to reach out to the local community and get candid supplemental information from key players with other stories too. The ability for story subjects to add their own commentary is a terrific feedback mechanism and can not only ensure stories are accurate but also help keep journalists honest too.

It's participatory mainstream media. With all its warts.

Welcome to Journalism 2.0.

Bloggers as PR vigilantes

My friend Rick Calvert of Blogworld Expo posted a note last night asking Should bloggers blacklist PR firms? His starting point for his article is an earlier note by Stowe Boyd, The Growing Backlash against PR, Spam and the Rationale for MicroPR. He in turn points to Gina Trapani, who has created a PR Spammers Wiki, where "she and others can publicly 'out' PR firms that are spamming bloggers or using other unsavory spammish practices."

I find this entire sequence of vigilante justice, as embodied in the concept of "outing" being applied to this situation, ridiculous. On the one hand, I constantly hear bloggers and other so-called new media journalists complaining that corporations and public relations firms aren't taking them seriously and then we get this sort of daft misbegotten idea where if a PR firm doesn't meet the ideal of interaction with a blogger, they can be digitally tarred and feathered.

I also get a lot of email from PR agencies, some of which is lame and poorly targeted, but much of which is interesting and worth receiving. When I get something I don't like, I send a one line note akin to "Not my beat, please drop me from this list" and it's done, no problem, no foul, no tar, no feathers.

When I get a query that attracts my attention, I appreciate the ability to type in a quick reply without having to dig up a contact person (they've already sent the message) and engage in a dialog with the pr agent or company representative. I'm candid and polite, and sometimes will point out how poorly their PR represents the company and other times take the apparently huge leap of forgiving them for not being perfect and focus on the message - the product or service they're promoting - rather than the contact query.

As a result, I dare say that I have an excellent relationship with just about every major PR agency in the United States, and a lot of smaller ones too.

The difference? I'm not out to change the world and I'm not arrogant enough to think that I should dictate how they should communicate with me, I just accept that there are inherent limitations in the system and try to make the best of it nonetheless.

This appears to be a minority perspectively, however, as embodied by comments like this one from Stowe:

"The root cause here is the delusion on the part of the clients that this sort of PR carpet bombing works, that mass media messages embedded in a press release or press release-ish email work, and that we, the bloggers, actually react positively to this junk."

Hate to break this to you, Stowe, but it does work and that the alternative suggestion of so-called MicroPR is at best idealistic and cannot scale, which is why it's doomed before it starts.

If I hire a PR firm to represent my company, I don't want them telling me all this hooha about "fostering the conversation" as a justification for why they only contacted seven people after billing me for 30 hours work, rather than contacting a few hundred targeted contacts. Further, I'm confident that a good PR agent can get me more visibility with their few hundred qualified contacts than a one-on-one twitter conversation with seven "perfect targets".

As someone with a foot in each camp (I write columns for both a monthly magazine and local newspaper but I also run very popular weblogs) I know that while it's not maximally efficient for the burden of selecting what's interesting to be dumped onto me as a journalist or citizen blogger, it's still far better than me never seeing the "offbeat" releases that might just catch my attention because they're not on "my beat".

Among other things, this boils down to a problem that most information researchers are familiar with: serendipitous resource discovery. You encounter it each time you pick up a printed dictionary to look up a word, just to find yourself browsing other words and enjoying the wealth of our language, or, what I did as a child, look up something in an encyclopaedia and find yourself immersed for hours in the tome.

What bothers me isn't that there are some self-important bloggers who are trying to "fix" a system that I don't really think is broken, but that there's a fundamental incongruity between wanting PR people to pay attention to them and view them as legitimate media outlets AND a desire to simultaneously change the rules of interaction without consideration of the full picture.

Rick offers a pithy retort to Stowe, Gina, and the blogger vigilantes:

"Will you occasionally get pitched something that is irrelevant to you or that is personally uninteresting to you? Of course. Too bad. Get over it or get a new job."

Well said, Rick!

However you spin it, I think that if you want to play in the world of mainstream media, journalism and public relations, you would do well to understand the dynamics and communications channels (especially the efficiencies of the system) and learn how to maximize your results rather than jump into digital yellow journalism and try to blacklist or humiliate PR professionals who might just view their job differently to your average blogger.

Me? I prefer not being part of a lynch mob, whether I knew I was being shanghaied into it or not...

Join me at the Colorado Capital Conference on May 22

If the idea of spending a day with a few hundred entrepreneurs sounds great, then you really should join us at the Colorado Capital Conference later this month. We have two keynote speakers, Simon Leung and Marc Silverman, and have eight workshops that day, along with eleven companies pitching and hoping for a funding event.

The workshops are going to be terrific:

• Financing 101
• Building a Winning Team
• Venture Labor: Don’t Confuse Stock Options with “Monopoly Money” to Grow Your Company
• Marketing 2.0 – Buzz and Social Media
• Making your Company Capital Attractive: How to Get from Here to There
• Revenue Generation: The Life Blood of Growing Business
• Valuations: The Key to It All
• How to Expand Your Overseas Sales

Any guess which one I'll be running? Yes, it's "Marketing 2.0" and I'm glad to also say that I'll be co-running the workshop with Jim Franklin, head of Oracle's Crystal Ball Global Business Unit.

We won't just be talking about new media and social networking as avenues for promoting your entrepreneurial venture or startup, however, we'll be developing a specific set of strategies and tactics for an organization to follow to maximize the benefit of modern marketing tactics while minimizing the associated cost. What company? Well, you'll have to join us to find out!

I hope you can join us. I know it'll be a day well spent and I'm excited about being able to participate in this event. Join us: register for the Colorado Capital Conference today (and take advantage of early bird pricing until May 9th)

How do you create buzz as a small business?

A few days ago I saw a query on PR Newswire (see my article how to gain more visibility in the mainstream media) from a reporter asking for some ideas about how small companies can gain more visibility in the new online world, the universe of social networks. The world you're immersed in at this moment if you're reading my weblog or RSS feed.

I gave him a pithy answer and thought it'd be interesting to also post it here and see if we can garner some additional thoughts and ideas about how entrepreneurs, startups and small companies can get some (positive) notoriety online.

Here's what I said to him in my email:

I think that I can offer you some help with your upcoming article. I actually work with small companies all the time to help them create buzz and visibility in their marketplaces, and my general response is:

do something goofy but interesting and of relevance to your market

For example, a gas station might run a promo where people submit their funniest stories about meeting people at the pump, and every week a winner gets a free fillup. Or they could be videos posted on YouTube, etc.

The point is to be a bit out of the box: small businesses that use traditional mainstream PR are competing with big corporations using the exact same channels, and will inevitably have poor results. It's hard to shine when you're in the shadow of someone much, much bigger.

So what do you think, dear reader?

What smart ways would you utilize to help your company - or client's company - gain visibility and buzz?