Twitter is a truly unique channel which both mimics and complements existing communication media.

Twitter is:
• public and published — like a blog
• conversational and concise — like text messaging
• available via a subscriber model — like RSS or Atom
• a social networking tool — like MySpace or Facebook.

In 140 characters or less, I regularly update my Twitter status via text message — which, in turn, automatically updates my Facebook status. This blog entry will be announced to those following ActiveMinds on Twitter, and simultaneously broadcast via our RSS feed.

Some call it “micro-blogging,” but this label is misunderstood. The Twitter FAQ (and certain Penny Arcade comic strips) give the impression of an extended Facebook status — where the egocentric can broadcast even the most mundane day-to-day occurrences. However, spend just a few minutes watching TwitterVision, and you’ll realize its true nature as a global conversation. As a user, I can be selective about what I’m “hearing,” and I can listen and respond to anyone in the room. More impressively, this conversation is growing rapidly. The Twitter user base has doubled since January to 1 million users, with an impressive 20% daily usage rate.

Others have written about the multitude of marketing opportunities this new medium provides, and its growing popularity does nothing to hamper this. As an information broadcast tool, Twitter has no entry cost for your business and a simple subscription model for your audience. Even better, so long as you provide content that interests this audience, they are captive. Your contribution to the conversation appears as an alert in the desktop clients, iPhones and web browsers of those listening. Compare this to a banner ad or a headline alongside hundreds of other messages in an Inbox or RSS aggregator.

Like any technology, Twitter is no silver bullet. The primacy of content does not change – it’s king, right? If anything, the terse nature of Twitter makes it easier to update, but it also makes it more critical to ensure your 140 characters are well spent.

So, if you’ve got it, why not tweet it?

A recent story out of the UK caught my eye earlier this month – six Maasai tribesmen flew into London to run in the London Marathon. They weren’t just doing it for fun – they were raising funds for clean water resources in their Tanzanian village.

The story itself was fascinating. Wearing their native garb, jewelry and shoes made from car tires, most finished the marathon in under five hours and the group raised over £60,000 (approx. $127,000 USD) for their village.

I was equally impressed, however, by how well the organizers used minimal technology for maximum effect.

The Maasai Marathon site is bare bones, allowing visitors to get more information about the cause, learn more about the runners and donate online to help the Maasai reach their goal. The organizers created an effective offline campaign to generate interest and drive traffic to the site. Without bells and whistles and excessive social media tools, the site is a tool for visitors to get the information they need to make an educated decision about supporting the Maasai’s effort.

As a web designer, it’s always tempting to experiment with the newest and shiniest tools and technology to create a “wow” online experience. However, sometimes simplicity is far more effective than maximum interactivity. In this case, the simple online site a) was more in keeping with the tribesmen themselves (who don’t own computers) and b) kept the focus on the Maasai and what they hoped to accomplish.

The Maasai campaign reminded me how more is not always better. It’s critical to define your goals clearly and choose your tools carefully to reach that goal. If the goal is simple, always consider a simple solution. Great editing skills are every bit as important as flashy solutions.

p.s. If you’re intrigued by the Maasai’s story, you might want to check out the chief’s diary of his week in the UK.

The modern website can do some amazing things for your business. It’s truly evolved from an online brochure into one of the major marketing engines and key drivers for growing your business.

To understand how we got from simple marketing sites to complex modern web applications, let’s take a quick walk down memory lane.

The web, in its 1.0 flavor, offered static content and little interactivity. A business would translate its traditional marketing collateral into a series of web pages (brochureware) that were rarely updated, and communication was generally one to many (broadcast). This technique was cumbersome and costly to maintain. It also didn’t scale well as sites grew.

To combat this problem the web evolved in the late ’90s into its 1.5 flavor. The introduction of web programming languages (such as Perl, ASP and PHP) and database connectivity allowed for dynamic content that was centralized and easily updated via a web administration system versus a developer. The underlying theme here is that content became easier to manage and publish more frequently. Databases allowed for the introduction of two-way communication on websites via message boards and self-help applications like FAQ’s and forms. The first generation of web software applications — such as content management systems (CMS) and Ecommerce — were introduced. Unfortunately, the cost of entry generally prohibited most small to medium companies from adopting them.

The next evolution (or should I say revolution?) on the web was Web 2.0. For the first time sites allowed users to interact with the website and contribute to its content. Search engine optimization (SEO) became a major factor in any redesign — site structures and content were highly optimized to gain higher organic rankings on search engines. Community features were introduced, including blogs, ratings, wikis, comments, threaded discussions and groups. Technologies such as web services, XML and RSS were added to allow content to be decentralized and syndicated. Sites also became a little smarter, offering different ways to navigate content by offering related or suggestive content and filtered navigation.

So, the question is, where are we now? What is the term being used to describe the next generation of web applications? And what technology separates this evolution from its predecessors? The term that the industry has settled on for the next generation website is the “Semantic Web”. Wikipedia has a great summary of this:

The Semantic Web is an evolving extension of the World Wide Web in which the semantics of information and services on the web is defined, making it possible for the web to understand and satisfy the requests of people and machines to use the web content. It derives from W3C director Tim Berners-Lee’s vision of the Web as a universal medium for data, information, and knowledge exchange.

Google’s iGoogle platform is a great example of this technology. It allows you to create your own, completely customizable web dashboard. You can add custom content tailored to your specific needs via RSS feeds, applications and widgets (from Google and 3rd parties). All of your settings are saved for repeat visits. At its heart the Semantic Web is the introduction of the “smart website.” Content is highly targeted to individual needs and desires and can be accessed via any number of media, including the traditional web browser, PDA or smart phones. It is the dawn of a new and exciting era online — one that empowers us with access to personalized information on demand, helping us keep up-to-date in the increasingly fast-paced lives we lead.

Last month fellow HD blogger, Gretchen, broached the topic of “What is the best CMS?” which stirred up some good debate in the comments. The question of CMS selection and approach comes up all the time. Everyone has their two cents on whether your project requires you to buy, build or go the Open Source route. To add to the discussion I wanted to reference an article in the latest edition of Adobe’s Edge newsletter that reviews some of the popular Open Source content management systems.

The article’s list of CMS solutions is, by no means, exhaustive or comprehensive — it only focuses on systems that run on Apache, MySQL and PHP architecture including: CMS Made Simple, Drupal, Joomla!, Wordpress and XOOPS. That being said, it is helpful and a nice quick way to compare and contrast some popular Open Source solutions. Enjoy!

As I was thinking of a title for this blog I considered using the “… is King” analogy but it seems the CMS industry has beaten that term to death.

It’s clear with the major success of sites like MySpace, Facebook and LinkedIn that community and social networking is big business. The marketing world is working hard to find ways to leverage this model for clients. It’s no doubt that when community and social networking tools are thought through and integrated successfully the investment can pay for itself rather quickly by connecting you directly with your customer to grow a relationship that allows you to gain amazing insights.

There are a lot of different concepts to consider when looking at social networking for brands. Instead of listing them all I’m going to borrow from (and summarize) the framework provided in Razorfish’s 2008 Digital Report using their “The six “C’s of social influence marketing” model.

• Content
  Content can come in many forms: video, wallpapers, badges, avatars, widgets and information. Authenticity and transparency is critical. Allow your content to be de-centralized (Syndication via RSS or embed).
• Customization
  Include elements where users can define themselves. Allow users to generate and customize their own content (blogs, comments, threaded discussions, etc). Empower consumers to express themselves.
• Community
  Give users a reason to interact. Provide unique content, value or engagement. Leverage relational social networking content on brand sites.
• Conversation
  Build a network of advocates. Using advocates to build new relationships = sales. Accept negative feedback and conversation. Intervene in a problem before it escalates.
• Commerce
  Must be soft sold. Consumers do not want a hard sell; any integration from your e-store must be subtle not blatant. Offer coupons, related content or links to store.
• Commitment
  It requires ongoing customer communication. Solicit feedback on products & services. Add more value to customers. Enhance brand reputation. Enable brand advocacy.

Before looking to embrace the benefits of community and social media you need to consider a solid strategy. A commitment to community requires an all or nothing approach. Provide your customer with a framework and tools that enable conversation and interaction. Don’t forget to invest in updating content that is rich and authentic and adding features that will keep your users coming back.

In the last 15 years or so, web content management systems (CMS) have essentially become the only way to build web sites. It makes perfect sense — from large corporate sites to one-page personal web sites, nobody wants to touch code every time they need to change an image or copy.

And the question I hear all the time is simply this: which one is the best one? I suppose it’s reasonable to assume that by now, one system has risen to the top. Sort of like Microsoft Word for word processing. But the truth is, there are literally hundreds of CMS packages out there, and they all do the same thing: update web content outside the site’s source code.

The real question you should be asking is “Which CMS is best for what I need?” Of course, that takes more planning work. Here are the top six things you should consider when selecting a CMS for your site:

1. How much do you want to spend? You can spend nothing, or you can spend millions on a CMS solution. of course, if you take the nothing route, as in open source, you will spend much more time on in-house development. You will also have more control over what features you have, instead of working around somebody else’s code. At the other extreme: spend lots of money, and you’ll get lots of built-in features, good post-launch support and reliable feature upgrades.

2. Who will be updating your site?If you’ve got lots of people in multiple locations needing to update content, you’ll need to consider workflow tools. Some CMS packages have good ones, some don’t. You’re going to need multiple user roles (contributor, editor, administrator, etc.) and specific approval steps content must go through before appearing on the site. On the other hand, if it’s just one person running the whole thing, you’re in luck. Don’t worry about workflow.

3. Do you need to publish in other languages?Some CMS packages have translation tools built in. If you need to publish your content in a number of different languages, make sure you select a CMS that will assist in that process. The tools will not be perfect, and you will still need to have a human translator check for accuracy, but at least you won’t have to translate every word manually.

4. What does your CMS need to work with?Do you sell product online? Are you using an e-commerce, payment gateway or a product information management system? Make sure you identify and consider outside systems before making any CMS decisions.

5. Consider your platform. This one’s deceptively simple. If you have 25 .NET developers on staff, don’t select a CMS that only uses Python. If your developers will be learning a new language, try to do it outside a new web site deployment. You’ll be busy enough without having to worry about training.6. Think about the future.Don’t just select a CMS to replace your current site; think about what you might want to do in the next five years. Will you be hiring more content contributors? Reducing your development staff? Assigning more web administrators? Adding an online store? You will need to think all of these things through, or you might be going through the same selection process in a year.

Of course there are plenty of other things to consider when selecting a CMS: can your company support ongoing administration? How much training will you need to do? What are other members of your industry using?

In fact, if you’re in higher education, you’re in luck: UC-Davis did a really interesting survey on which CMS tools colleges are using. The comments alone are an interesting read.

So, if you’re in the market for a new CMS, be thoughtful about it. It might take a little longer up front, but you’ll be glad you did.

I was doing some online searching the other day about passion and inspiration – key concepts of both innovation and communication – and I went to www.ted.com, a site dedicated to spreading ideas, to see what was new.

Each year, some of the world’s greatest thinkers and doers share their insights on general themes at the TED conference in Monterey, California. Each year, these speakers share both their passion and their knowledge on fascinating topics, and you can find them online.

TED stands for Technology, Education and Design and has an interesting history. The first TED conference was organized by Richard Saul Wurman in 1984, and after a six-year hiatus, it became an annual event in 1990. Wurman had already made a name for himself by developing the popular ACCESS travel guidebooks. The concept for these books was to present information the way we seek it — in this case, by location. Wurman coined the phrase “information architecture” and demonstrated the concept with this series.

The TED conference grew from Wurman’s observations of a convergence trend among three disciplines: technology, education and design. He saw potential in bringing together the greatest minds in each, to share ideas and explore new concepts. At the time, he was also an ongoing host and participant of the International Design Conference in Aspen, which was the leading multi-disciplinary business and design conference. TED took the concept further, as an invitation-only event. Additionally, each speaker is challenged to “give the talk of their lives” in 18 minutes.

Now, you can watch and listen to these presentations online. The content is presented in video and audio formats. You can search the content by theme, speaker, popularity or volume of online discussion. Once you discover TED, It won’t take long to find your favorite presentations or speakers. Here are a few of mine: Majora Carter: Greening the ghetto; William McDonough: The wisdom of designing Cradle to Cradle; and Malcolm Gladwell: What we can learn from spaghetti sauce.

Best of all, the videos are released under a Creative Commons license, which means you can redistribute them freely and legally. To me, this proves that the TED people are truly more interested in spreading ideas than trying to sell something or promote a hidden agenda.

The convergence concept couldn’t be more relevant today. Branding, like everything else, is increasingly social and technological. TED is a valuable resource for our work, but it’s also a source of inspiration and information about the increasingly complex and connected world-at-large. And for many of us, those small moments of inspiration and connection are what make us passionate about our work, and our lives.

I recently did a presentation to the Milwaukee Internet Marketing Association on how brands need to leverage the web to help build loyal consumers and convert them into what we call “Brand Champions.”

It was interesting pulling this presentation together because the thoughts I captured are at the heart and soul of what we as a firm work to deliver for every brand we work with when we create any program. Creating Brand Champions requires a discipline and focus that extends far beyond the marketing department. From product development, to service, to sales, to dealer relations there isn’t an area of an organization that doesn’t impact a brand’s ability to create lasting, meaningful relationships with their consumers. Steve Rubel wrote a post on Micro Persuasion “Preaching to the Converted” almost three years ago that I believe extends to how brands should approach all their work online.

1. FIND where your target consumers and brand champions are interacting online
2. LISTEN to what they are saying to better understand what they want and need from your brand
3. ENGAGE your users in a dialogue and create new ways for your consumers to interact with your brand
4. EMPOWER your Brand Champions to create stories and lead conversations about your brand to actively influence others

I cover these in my presentation with examples of how LISTENING, ENGAGING and EMPOWERING your users within a Brand’s site can help create Brand Champions. Check out my presentation and I would love to hear your point of view on the topics covered.

Common sense tells us that if we hear good things about a company or a product, we’re more likely to use that product. In the online world, this is now a proven fact. If you’re considering adding online reviews to your site, you might want to take a look at the results of a large-scale study recently conducted by comScore with The Kelsey Group.

• Nearly 1/4 of internet users read reviews before paying for an offline service.

• 97% of those surveyed who said they made a purchase based on an online review said they found the review to have been accurate.

• Reviews generated by fellow consumers had a greater influence than those generated by professionals.

• Consumers are generally willing to pay at least 20% more for a service that received an “Excellent” rating.

Read the full study results here.

I like to think I’m too optimistic to put much stock in the phrase, “Believe half of what you see and none of what you read.” But with the proliferation of blogs, the ease of setting up a simple website and the ability to make a quick buck (really a quick nickel) by brokering internet visitors from one site to another, I’m starting to turn the corner on the “read” part of that pessimistic adage. This is especially true when researching products online, using product reviews (editorial not user-generated) as a primary source of information and letting them guide the shopping process.Consider the following exchanges:

(Pat approaches Terry who is sitting at the computer…)
Pat: Hey, what are you doing?
Terry: Researching digital cameras…
Pat: Oh. (pause) Are we getting a new digital camera?
Terry: Maybe…
Pat: OK. (pause) What site is that?
Terry: (shrugs) Dunno. I just typed “Digital Camera Reviews” into Google
Pat: Oh. (pause) Google’s awesome. (looking over Terry’s shoulder and pointing at the screen) That one looks good.
Terry: (nods) Yeah, this site seems to really like {insert brand name with good reviews} and not {insert brand name with bad reviews}. Look at this review - one and a half stars.
Pat: Wow. Really? Hmm. I always thought those were good cameras.
Terry: I know. Me too. I’d never buy a {insert brand name} now.

(Meanwhile, back at the agency…)

Client: One of our dealers found this site - have you seen it? Do you know who these guys are? They’re reviewing our products…
Agency: Hmm…I haven’t seen this site before. We’ll see what we can find out.
Client: OK. Thanks.

(Later that day…)

Agency: I’ve got an update for you.
Client: Go ahead.
Agency: Well, it looks like they’re an affiliate marketing site. They make about $8 on average for every person who directly buys a camera after reading a review and click’s off to buy online. There are some other components to the program but that’s pretty much the gist of it.
Client: Oh. (pause) Do you think that’s why they’re bashing our product? Because they make money when visitors buy {insert brand name with good reviews} and not ours?
Agency: It could be.
Client: Hmm. (pause) What do you think we should do?

“What do you think we should do?” That’s an interesting question for manufacturers, retailers, consumers and consultants. One that will get worse I fear before the karmic balance of the information superhighway weeds out the predators — those willing to mislead under the guise of legitimate editorial reviews so they can collect their nickels. Now, don’t get me wrong. I like (strike that) LOVE the spirit of entrepreneurialism. I’m a big fan of the almighty Dollar, Euro and Yuan. I enjoy reading about savvy, hardworking people finding new and interesting ways to make a living in the information age. I research products, shop online, and appreciate eCommerce affiliate programs. Why not pay people who bring in leads that close?

For me, it’s the suspect reviews. And here’s the classic example of abuse: all the products in the category are “reviewed” but interestingly, only those that are linking to an eCommerce site by way of an affiliate marketing program get the “two thumbs up” rating. Hmm.

It’s an issue that I feel the Google-searching American public should be made aware of. Good thing every one of them is reading this post…

I suppose we could teach the average online product review reader how to sift through source code to spot if the, “Learn more about this product” links routes through Commission Junction or Moola Moola. I’ll start with Mom…who turns 75 in a couple weeks… Maybe “View Source” isn’t going to work.

National exposure by the news media would help. If anyone from 60 Minutes is reading this, call me.

What do you think we should do?