Tangyslice

Over the last few months I’ve seen a significant decrease in LinkedIn connection requests and a corresponding increase in Facebook friends.  It seems that Generation X is waking up to Facebook and may start nibbling on LinkedIn’s user base.  While these two sites serve very different purposes, they are still fighting for my online attention.

Here are some of ways I believe LinkedIn can update their site to become a more integrated part of my online life:

1. Make it easier to “friend” someone - I don’t know how many times I’ve had to go fishing through Outlook for  an email address to friend I know really well like my sister-in-law.

2. Better integration with other sites - Lifestreaming is coming to a laptop near you (See FriendFeed, Socialthing, etc) .  LinkedIn could take a lesson from Plaxo on how to connect with people’s lives.  It would be nice if I could easily import my blog posts, photos and other content into my LinkedIn profile.

3. Standardize status updates - Their 98 character status update is pretty short for people familiar with Facebook and Twitter.  It is also challenge to use a third party site like Hellotxt or PingFM to push your oversharing to LinkedIn.

4. Encourage greater use of their API - Much of the success of sites like Twitter can be attributed to the third-party applications that use the API to pull and add value to live data.

5. Better RSS feeds -It is nice to have LinkedIn feeds at all.  I can, however, imagine an infinite number of permutations for RSS feeds by company, region and education.

LinkedIn will continue to be a key part of the social media ecosystem.  I just wish it were more connected.  That is the point ofsocial media after after all?

So here were are almost a month after the completion of my social media journey.  As promised, here is the list of sites I am still using:

Twitter: Now that their major outages seem to be behind them, I can regularly share my microdrivel with my “followers”.

Facebook: Gen-X is now embracing Facebook and I am regularly getting friend requests from my World 1.0.

Flickr: I like their desktop application for uploading pictures.

HelloTxt: One click and I can push my status updates to over 10 sites.

LinkedIn: My professional network still uses this site.

Netvibes: Nice interface for aggregating news and other feeds.

Finetune: My 20 something friends rave about Last.fm but I find Finetune site much more intuitive.

I just made my final donation to my online fundraising page bringing the total to $340.  Thank you again to all of my supporters.

Going forward, I plan to regularly add to the Tangy list as the supply of social media sites is virtually endless.  Keep the recommendations coming and stay Tangy.

What once was a fun and hip way to promote your product or service has now become a common rationalization for the next magical project pitched by your favorite agency.  Just take a minute and Google “viral marketing”.  You’ll find an endless stream of creative types touting some viral video, screensaver or other form of microdrivel.  If you dig a little deeper, however, you discover some pretty interesting content about what it takes to make something “viral”.

I started this post with the goal of creating another one of those “<insert prime number here> ways to make your marketing more viral” rants.  I’ll get to that in a minute but before I do let’s demystify all that is viral.

• Viral spread is more challenging if your offering isn’t inherently sharable.
• Virality isn’t a silver bullet if your other marketing programs aren’t working.
• Some pretty smart people have recently challenged the view that all it takes is a couple of “big sneezers” to to create an online “epidemic”.
• Viral is not a business model (apologies to the 50+ social bookmarking sites who will soon be sucking on fumes).
• BurgerKing’s subservient chicken really isn’t a chicken.

So what is viral?  Well, in many ways it is very similar to some old school things like customer referral and customer advocacy programs. You know, give your best and/or most vocal customers easy ways to “tell a friend” and maybe they get a little something back for their troubles.  Like many web 2.0 ideas, you just take an tried and true concept like customer referrals and soak it in a sharable application-based infusion to get $25M+ of VC pixie dust (See Widgetbox).

Unfortunately, many of us live in World 1.0 and have CEOs and boards that measure performance based archaic things like revenue and profits.  So for the rest of us, here are some simple ways you can make your online marketing more sharable (you can still use the word viral if you want to impress your boss or poker buddies).  In the long run it can be cheaper to get your happy customers to do your marketing for you.  This doesn’t mean you can cut all your old school “push” marketing programs, but viral programs can make a big difference.

So here is my list of five things you can do to make your marketing more viral:

1. Get your users to consciously share your brand - This means adding “email a friend” and other sharable links on every page.

2. Get your users to unconsciously share your brand - Think Hotmail.  They built a huge business by adding a simple footer to every email sent through their site.

3. Give your users widgets or sharable applications - I know I made fun of Widgetbox earlier but they do provide users with an easy way to share your content through a range of channels.

4. Give your users an incentive to share - Even my auto repair shop has a customer referral program.  I can get a $40 Dunkin Donuts gift card if I send a friend to them.  Chances are your customers will respond to the proper incentives too.

5. Entertaining videos/games/quizzes/screensavers - This is what most people think of when they hear the words “viral marketing”.  The best ones don’t always have the highest production values.  It just has to resonate with your audience enough to get them to pass it on.

There are other more subtle approaches one could employ to leverage network effects to enhance adoption but that is for another day.

Over the last few years, I have noticed a division in the types of marketing people I meet. Some colleagues have referred to this as data driven vs. marcom/branding types but in my mind this view never really worked. While the increasing measurability of the web does provide an unfair advantage to marketers with MBAs and an undergraduate degree in something unsexy like engineering or chemistry, it always seemed like there was something more at play.

In recent weeks, I’ve been a part of a team that is transforming its product development philosophy from a “waterfall” (lots of time building a fixed specification followed by a long development cycle) to an “agile” approach (shorter development cycles with lots of iterations since you can’t really know reality until you try something). Software developers have employed this methodology for years but it isn’t just a more effective way to get “good enough” products out on time. It is a way of thinking that can be embraced by other  functions including marketing.

I know that many of the world’s greatest dictators/managers want to believe that marketers can accurately predict the future but they can’t. I’ve never been able to do it and as a result have resorted to an iterative approach that relies on low cost testing of media and programs. This makes the ad sales reps at the trade magazines or WBUR radio angry but the fact is that marketing is as much about science as art. I know, I know, we all have to build a brand by spending money on difficult-to-measure things like PR and advertising. By using iterative, agile tactics, however, it is possible to mitigate your risk, improve your overall marketing ROI and put a smile on your pointy headed CFO’s face.

Taking inspiration from an article on the Web 2.0 organization, I created this table that highlights what I see as some of the key differences between a traditional waterfall and an agile approach to marketing.

Waterfall Marketer		Agile Marketer
Focus on fixed annual marketing plan		Builds monthly, weekly or even daily plans
Repeats of familiar programs		Is always testing of new programs and media
A few expense programs		Many low cost programs, scale up proven programs
Sees personal value as relative to size of budget		Sees personal value as relative to results
Creative		Analytic
Know what media is best from datacards		Always testing since doesn’t know the best media
Still believes in physical events		Skeptical about the effectiveness of tradeshows
Brand comes from long expensive strategy projects		Brand comes from the experience of customer and business
Sees things as predictable		Lives in an unpredictable world
“Can’t measure that” is often an excuse		Invests mostly in measurable programs
Gets nice gifts from ad sales reps		Refuses meetings with ad sales reps
Fights for maximum budget each year		Justifies budget bottom up from goals
CFO is the enemy		CFO is good friend
Complains of repeated budget cuts		CEO asks if you can take more money to accelerate growth

Did I miss anything? I would welcome any other suggestions people might have for the list as I don’t think it is exhaustive.

Well my friends, the end is here.  I learned many things on this journey and plan to share them over the next few weeks.  In particular, I discovered that a couple of weeks of Twitter use can’t make you a social media expert (BTW, it takes at least a couple of years in a busted consumer Internet firm or a short stint as a used car salesman to seal the deal).

As always, these picks are for entertainment purposes only (no wagering, please).

Digfoot -I thought I had seen it all with aggregation sites until I found Digfoot.  They take things to another level with a list of 3,701 sites (yes, you read that right, 3,701 sites).  I believe we have a winner.

Diigo - I can just hear their PR guy prepping their CEO for the big press briefing: “We’re powerful research tool and a knowledge-sharing community, not a social bookmarking site.” I dunno folks, looks like another bookmarking site to me.

Orkut - A social networking and discussion site with an odd name operated by Google.

Disqus -I can use this site to turn my blog comments into an online discussion.  To be honest, I am a little short on comments right now.  You could help with that, please…

Skyrock -Share pictures and video… Meet friends… Does this sound familiar?  It does, however, seem to have some traffic.

GetSatisfaction - “Get Satisfaction is a place where people can get the most from the products they use”.  These guys provide a free community where businesses and their customers can share ideas and solve problems.  You should check out the list of companies using this site.

Kirtsy - In their words: “Kirtsy is a social media platform of pure goodness. A plaza for the peachy. A portal to the pretty. A place to find cool things…. And more.”  Wow, I am speechless.

Funny or Die - You know the end is near when celebrities a piece of the VC fueled action.  We can thank Will Farrell for his support of this site.

Orangutag -And finally we have number 100.  As if I don’t already watch too much TV, I can now create a watchlist for my favorite shows and get a personalized RSS feed to share them with everyone.  I just need a super BigGulp, a half gallon of ice cream and a bag of Doritos to go with this site.

I’d like to thank everyone who made this happen.  My parents, my friends at Firstgiving, donors to my fundraising page as well as that aspiring social media mogul Limeduck.

As I was reading the latest MIT Tech Review (the one with Leah Culver of Pownce on the cover), it dawned on me that most of my efforts on this adventure will likely be wasted.  The cold hard fact is that most of these site have no business models (I know, revenue can be a distraction).  I imagine that the party is going to end pretty soon and their investors are will have one heck of a hangover.

Here we go:

Heavy: Another video site. This one is not exactly for my demographic profile.

Propeller and Blinklist: More bookmarking sites.

Googlereader: An easy-to-use news reader from everyone’s favorite search engine.

Slide: A slideshow and photo sharing site.

Odeo and Sevenload: Audio and video sharing sites.

Total: 91 down, 9 to go.  Wish me luck and show me the money.

As the futility of this exercise begins to set in, I am trying to remember those kids at the Brackett Elementary School and the people who pledged money to my online fundraising campaign.

Here is the latest installment. Please remember these are for entertainment purposes only.

Friendster - Along with LinkedIn, these guys were one of the original social media sites.  Frankly I am surprised I’ve never received an invitation from a friend.  My guess is that it is an east coast-west coast thing.  I bet these guys are now thinking “man, we coulda been Facebook if we opened things up earlier”.

SecondBrain and Social URL - Two more aggregators to help me “syndicate” my microdrivel.

Webshots - Another photo sharing site.

The Hype Machine and iLike - Two more music sites.

This brings my total to 85 with 4 short days to go.  Keep those donations coming.

OK.  I’ve finally broken out of my recent funk thanks to suggestions from a less sinister duck (that lazy slacker Robb Corduck) as well as a bunch of recent donation from some Fg’ers (thanks to Mark, Mags, Suze and JH) and old Experian-QAS colleagues (thanks Jaime and Jane:-).  Strangely I haven’t seen any suggestions from Fidel Castro - despite being seldom in doubt and frequently wrong, I imagine he visits some interesting sites from his deathbed.

I’ve been on a music and video kick this week as I feel the need for some new inspiration.

Finetune - This is yet another site that provides streamed music.  Like its competitors, it also includes a recommendation engine and a community.  I particularly like the pop-up player with its iTunes feel.  I also discovered the singer Beth Orton and her intoxicating voice.  This site will be in the heavy music rotation until a new competitor unseats it.

Fuzz - These guys get extra credit for persistence.  As I am learning every day, starting a new community from scratch is hard work.  I got 5 emails in the last 24 hours from people trying to befriend me.  These messages were clearly handcrafted.  I was impressed with one sender who knew that Tang was consumed by the astronauts in space (clearly a trivia buff or another hipness seeking Gen-x’er).  I’ll be back when I’m in an indie music mood.  Rock on Mr. Blimp.

Pandora - I tried this music community over a year ago but can’t recall why I didn’t go back.  It will be a while before I go back unless I get tired of Finetune’s recommendations.

Godtube - This site further proves the point that there is a community for all kinds of people.  Maybe I’ll earn some brownie points from the man upstairs for promoting it.

Myoutdoorsite - This is another square state special.  I was looking for a duck hunting photo to post here but that seemed in bad taste.  I particularly enjoyed the posed pictures of little kids along with daddy’s recently killed animal. It is best not to coddle these children.  We are at war after all.

Total: 79 down, 21 to go.  Stay tangy and keep those online donations coming.

Cheers.

Happy Bastille Day from the land of wet paper bags.

Rather than sit around and wait for recommendations from my loyal readers, I decided to break out the big guns over the weekend.  I am proud (yeah, right) of my single session haul of 22 sites.  Given my short time window and the repetitive nature of these sites, I have decided to group them by theme.

The big news came from Ping.fm where I got a beta code (finally).  I haven’t fully tested it yet but plan to after this adventure is over.

This installment features a load of social bookmarking and video sites.  They come in many flavors but essentially do similar things.  I am presently using Digg and Del.icio.us for bookmarking. These others seem like more of the same.

I don’t have any original video content at the moment so I’ll have to see what I can find, tag and share.

Site Count:

73 down and 27 to go.  (My eyes are killing me from all these captchas).

Video Sharing/Viewing Sites

ustream.tv

veoh

viddler

vodpod

Blip.tv

Dailymotion

Social Bookmarking

vi.sualize.us

clipmarks

Furl

Faves

Simpy

Blogging/Microblogging

Vox

Zooomr

Location Based Services (like Brightkite and Dopplr)

Groovr

Plazes

Aggregators

Ping.fm

Soup.io

Other

MSN - I use MSN IM everyday so I can count this.

Slideshare - This is pretty self explanatory.  With its wide variety of qualty content, this one is worth checking out

Mashable - A leading social networking and social media blog

Yelp - Become a reviewer.

Webshots - Another photo site.

Thank you

Also I’d like to thank everyone for the recent donations to my online fundraising page.  They will help a great cause (the Brackett Elementary School PTO).

Poke you later.

Frank aka “Tangyslice”

I am now more than halfway through this adventure and need to break through the 50% milestone.  One  friend suggested today that the last 50 will be more difficult than the first.  I disagree as the recommendations keep pouring in despite the fact that I have no friends (outside of FB, LinkedIn, Twitter and the Arlington All-in Poker group).

So here is today’s installment (No, I didn’t have to resort to the dating sites…yet….)

Ma.gnolia - A social bookmarking site with a more pleasant user experience.

Dopplr - As a site for the “intelligent business traveller”, I figured this might be interesting.  I’ll have to try this next time I jet off to London.  This reminds me of Brightkite.

Hulu -Founded by NBC Universal and News Corp, this ad supported site helps “people find and enjoy the world’s premium video content when, where and how they want it”.  I didn’t see much that meets my tastes aside of the TV show “The Office”.  Did I stutter?

Mahalo - Claims to be a “human-powered search engine” that is spam-free.  I guess their “great links” are in the eyes of the beholder as their top three links are for swimsuit photos and Grand Theft Auto cheats.

Mixx - Yet another social news/tagging/bookmarking site.

Reddit -See Mixx.

Spock - It claims to be “world’s leading people search engine”.  I recall getting an invitation from a friend years ago for this site.  Given I already have LinkedIn and Plaxo, I’m not sure why I need another site like this.

Socialthing -Yet another aggregator/status updater.  They just added a bunch of new services (10 in total) but it still doesn’t have the reach of others (see Hellotxt and Ping.fm).  I do like the fact that you can vote on the next sites they will add to the Lifestream.  I’m just not sure if this will dislodge HelloTxt from the top of my aggregator/updater list.

Second life -I will avoid the obvious joke about having no life so I have to go to this site to get one.

Sons of Sam Horn -As lifelong Red Sox fan, I am very familiar with this site.

Tumblr -A large-print blogging with with templates and easy RSS handling.

Threadless -The community chooses t-shirt designs.  The business supports the artists who create them.  New shirts arrive every week.  I could use some of these threads to increase my coolness factor.

YouTube -Where to go to view a vintage SNL Alex Trebek skit or random embarrassing video.  I need to update the Tangy channel.

Total Sites: 58 down, 42 to go.

That’s all for now.  Keep those recommendations coming and don’t forget to checkout my Brackett Elementary School PTO fundraiser page.