Social Media | Chief Business Futurist Blog

Posted on January 31, 2007June 18, 2016 by David Dalka — 3 Comments

Sociable 2.0 Plugin Release Interview: Peter Harkins

Please bookmark as “Sociable 2.0 Interview” – Thanks!

I first met Peter Harkins in person at Barcamp Chicago in the Summer of 2006. As I’ve gotten to know him, he knows far more than just coding, as he appreciates and participates constructively in conversations about business strategy and monetization. It’s a winning combination.

The response has been incredible to the Sociable plugin, so you’ve been slammed with inquiries…

Peter: I’ve gotten dozens of mails about Sociable in the last week, from sites wanting to be included, users testing it out in unusual situations and last-minute feature requests. I’ve promised to get 2.0 out by Midnight February 1, so it’s been a race to the wire to get in new features.

Peter: I’ve added 26 sites at last count in this version. Just this morning a Hungarian programmer sent me at least a few more, so I may have as many as 60 sites in the next version.

You’ve add new language translations with this version, that is exciting…

Peter: Yes. It looks like this version will have support for Spanish, Czech, Italian, German and French with more to come. Before 2.0, interested users were just picking it up, translating it, and offering it for download on their blogs. It was a bit frustrating to track bug fixes between different branches of Sociable. Now we’ll have a unified project to share resources and drive development faster, I want to have releases at least every other month in 2007.

You keep the installation and interface pretty simple…

Peter: Deliberately, so, yes. As a programmer, it’s really easy to think of the UI as “that last bit I have to add so people can use my beautiful code” instead of what it truly is: the most important part of the application. So I spent a lot of time making sure that you can install Sociable just by unzipping and uploading it, rather than try to provide complicated install instructions. I spent time on a feature most people never see: when you install Sociable, it checks a manifest of files to make sure it was uploaded right, and it tells you what files go where if it’s not perfect. It provides help right when you need it most, and plainly enough that you understand it.

Peter: The drag-and-drop in the admin interface is just a delight to use, and deliberately so. I want blog owners to feel safe playing around with the different options to see what works on their site. So I’ve spent most of my time on making the UI really nice as well as fixing up the insides.

So you also reprogrammed the internals of the Sociable application for future development and expansion beyond WordPress?

Peter: I want to start porting Sociable over to work on other blog engines like TypePad, Movable Type, Mephisto, and more. So I’ve cleaned up the internals of 2.0, laying the groundwork for 2.1 or 2.2 to support more engines. It’s also going to start doing a little stat reporting when it checks for updates. I know there are roughly 10,000 blogs out there using it, but I’d like to know more exactly and maybe cross-reference to traffic rating services to find out what kind of positive effect it has.

You have an alert system for updating?

Peter: Yes, Sociable checks for new versions when folks view the admin console and notifies the blog owner to go download it. Without it there’d still be people using Sociable 1.2 in five years, hopefully with it everyone will be upgraded in a month or two.

In the past you mentioned that there are three different types of users of Sociable…

Peter: First up, there’s beginning bloggers. They’ve just started a blog, and they’ve got stars in their eyes of being the next BoingBoing or something. Sociable is a tool they’ll use to get the word out about their new blogs, and I’m really glad to help out. As much trouble as some have had spelling “Sociable”, it’s been most rewarding to talk to them because they’re new to blogging and are so happy to be able to easily drop in Sociable.

Peter: Then there are the established bloggers. They’ve got an audience and they want to start leveraging it. Sociable makes it easy for their audience to start getting the word out and growing the blog. I get most of my feature requests from this group, and they’re the people who send me the code to add their favorite bookmarking site.

Peter: I get a lot of links from the SEO crowd, who really put the word out about Sociable. They’ve found Sociable to be a useful tool, so they turn around and install it for their clients. Oddly they’re group I hear the least from, they almost never mail me. But they’ll be the most unusual mails sometimes.

So how are the SEO emails unusual?

Peter: I’ve gotten a really bizarre feature requests like – “You should make Sociable automatically submit each blog post to every bookmarking site! And then vote it up!” – or other crazy schemes! It’s frustrating, Sociable is a tool to help blog owners by reminding readers to bookmark good content. “Sociable should make other blogs using Sociable link to mine with the link text I fill in!” Ugh! I should mention that this is a tiny minority of the SEO folks, I’ve only gotten a half-dozen “Help me spam!” mails.

Sounds like we could monetize a Sociable SEO Pro version together?

Peter: There are definitely a few customers waiting, but I’ve got plenty of other projects ahead of it.

Like what?

Peter: I just recently launched NearbyGamers, a social site for tabletop gamers to find other folks to play card, board, and role-playing games with. It’s been a real blast, but my to do list is as long as my arm so it’s eating up my free time. And I’ve been trying to keep updating my own blog with web coding tips but it’s easy to slip out of the habit.

Sociable has created great networking for you. What are some of the better stories?

Peter: I ended up doing CrunchBoard for TechCrunch because I met a guy via a guy via a guy who used Sociable, and that was a real fun project.

What are some of the underused or misunderstood features of the tool?

Peter: One minor frustration has been writing CSS for Sociable that can deal with all the odd things different blog themes do. I’ve had dozens of people mail me asking (sometimes quite forcefully) why Sociable doesn’t look right on their blog, and so far none have thought it’s their own site doing it.

What else should the people know about Peter Harkins?

Peter: You should never ask him to sing anything…

Good luck with the release Peter!

Posted on January 28, 2007November 26, 2010 by David Dalka — 1 Comment

Interview with Joe Beaulaurier of PR Web

One of the many people I’ve had a pleasure of meeting in person is Joe Beaulaurier, Interactive Marketing Manager at PRWeb, Inc. Joe maintains an interesting personal blog on press release issues (no longer in existence).

Question: So a lot is happening these days at PRWeb!

Joe: Yes! We have been extremely busy upgrading our systems to accommodate increasing demands both in release volumes and page views. We have also been busy implementing partnerships such as Billboard’s Billboard Publicity Wire and Business Wire’s EON.

Question: What will being owned by Vocus will mean to PRWeb customers?

Joe: PRWeb has tried hard to listen to the market and deliver the tools and services it wants. This has done very well for us and our parent company, Vocus, wants us to hold that course. Their greatest concern was to come in and do something which would muck up what they saw as a great company with great products and rabidly loyal customers.

Question: Could you inform people about the new Business Wire alliance?

Joe: PRWeb and Business Wire have partnered to create a uniquely enhanced newswire service, EON. EON stands for “Enhanced Online News.” Press releases submitted using the Business Wire’s EON platform receive the benefits provided by PRWeb online distribution and technologies which will make the press release more visible to consumers and more accessible via Web 2.0 sites and social media sites. This really demonstrates how PRWeb complements rather than directly competes with traditional newswires.

Question: Let’s start simple, what distinguishes PRWeb from other press release services?

Joe: Traditionally, newswires were expected to either fulfill disclosure requirements for public companies (distributing news of material interest to stockholders out to financial analysts and into the financial news arenas) and/or to get the media’s attention in the hope they would reproduce the message to their audience. But PRWeb isn’t a disclosure newswire and we don’t stop at delivering your message to the media.

For example, when a traditional newswire says they are inserting your release into Yahoo! News, they are actually inserting it into Yahoo! Financial’s news index. This is where people interested in finance are spending their time, this is not necessarily your best audience (consumers, trade partners, etc.). When PRWeb inserts your release into Yahoo!, it is being placed in Yahoo! News. This is the consumer-oriented property as opposed to the financial-oriented property.

In addition to locating the best distribution channels for your release, PRWeb has also led the industry with, and in some cases is the only newswire to offer, many technologies built into our platform which makes your release more visible online and gives visitors more information and resources when they arrive at your release page.

Question: You recently added several new features. Could you outline what these mean in detail?

Joe: PRWeb customers are always discovering many new features and tools while using PRWeb. Some of these are rolled out with very little fanfare, such as the new eBook Electronic Media Kit Wizard.

The eBook Electronic Media Kit Wizard provides PRWeb customers with the ability to create a professionally produced collection of their press releases in PDF format. This tool provides for a customized cover and company profile page. The full release body including Internet links is provided for every release included. This means PRWeb customers can now easily produce a professional company information packet for the media, potential partners or prospective clients.

There are many other changes such as additions to our PRWeb Podcasting service offerings and Trackbacks are now available on PRWeb Photowire pages.

We are always pursuing new ideas and methods to improve our offerings which, quite frankly, is a very fun part of our business!

Question: Also announced was the elimination of the free release service. Yet many have commented positively on this, can you please explain this apparent contradiction?

Joe: Let me first explain why we did this. PRWeb has grown and changed many times over the past decade. One goal that has always been present has been to give the most people access to our services. To do this meant keeping our prices as low as possible and even providing a free release product in our offerings. This has served us and the market well as our speedy growth has shown. I will go so far as to guess that we have actually created a new group of press release users who otherwise would not have been able to afford them.

But as time passed, we discovered two critical challenges to the free distribution offering. First, we had to defend ourselves and others from the prospect of spoofing (a third-party releasing information about someone or some company that just wasn’t true). To do this, we had to greatly restrict the distribution of free releases to the point where there just wasn’t any value in them any more. Second, the editing resources used to maintain quality content on our site was largely from the free content. The time spent dealing with free content versus time spent on paying customers became too tilted towards free content. So given the risk, the lack of ultimate value provided and the burden on our resources, it was decided to discontinue providing a free release product.

To answer your question, yes there is a positive side to this for our customers and for visitors to our site. As mentioned, we were dedicating a lot of resources to free content which can now be dedicated to our paying customers. This means an increase in customer service response time, freedom for our staff to spend more time with our customers as needed and higher quality content on our site.
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I’d like to thank Joe for spending time with us talking about the press and social media release services that PRWeb offers. It’s an evolutionary journey that is taking place in this space. What other questions might you have for Joe? What do you think of these new offerings and how do you compare them to PR Web’s competition? Inquiring minds want to know!

Posted on January 17, 2007June 18, 2016 by David Dalka — 6 Comments

John Edwards Campaign Claims Listening

Ryan M from the John Edwards campaign claims that the campaign is listening to the blogosphere / social media. Sorry Ryan, but the facts speak otherwise. On January 6th, 2007, I posted “How to Forge a New American Mandate Via Social Media Political Revolution”. There was a listing of the major candidates in one section of the post “Scoble’s posts made me think how can we truly integrate social media into campaigns(and after the election). John Edwards said in his interview with Scoble that we need “a bottom up democracy.” It’s an amazing challenge requiring change in our government not seen in over a generation. The campaigns for President of John Edwards, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Mike Gravel, Dennis Kucinich, Tom Vilsack, Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, Newt Gingrinch, Frank Keating, Chuck Hagel, Mike Huckabee, George Pataki, Mitt Romney and Tommy Thompson would be wise not to adopt this as a tactic but as a way to redesign government’s interaction with our citizens. Democrat or Republican is not the issue here.”

The post also stated the following “This is a post on how to use social media to improve accountability in political campaign. As such I’d like to learn which Presidential campaigns are actively monitoring the blogosphere. Please leave a comment if you have an official association with one of these candidates and feel free to discuss this post in your own communities.”

Not only did John Edwards campaign not leave a response, sadly no campaign checked in. A simple RSS alert on the candidates name would have caught this post, yet no campaign did. I was simply looking for affirmation that campaigns were truly listening to the blogosphere / social media consistently. Unfortunately, the campaigns aren’t monitoring the whole blogosphere on a consistent basis yet.

Posted on January 6, 2007June 18, 2016 by David Dalka — 7 Comments

How to Forge a New American Mandate Via Social Media Political Revolution

Robert Scoble’s political journey with John Edwards recently bought back memories of when I once worked on a Presidential primary campaign in 1992. It’s hard and one of the most tiring things you could ever volunteer to be a part of! Regardless of your political beliefs (I’m generally a politically interested independent issues driven voter), you can’t help but gain respect for anyone willing to put themselves through the grueling election process once you’ve seen it up close. Scoble’s posts made me think how can we truly integrate social media into campaigns(and after the election). John Edwards said in his interview with Scoble that we need “a bottom up democracy.” It’s an amazing challenge requiring change in our government not seen in over a generation. The campaigns for President of John Edwards, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Mike Gravel, Dennis Kucinich, Tom Vilsack, Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, Newt Gingrinch, Frank Keating, Chuck Hagel, Mike Huckabee, George Pataki, Mitt Romney and Tommy Thompson would be wise not to adopt this as a tactic but as a way to redesign government’s interaction with our citizens. Democrat or Republican is not the issue here. Oddly it came at a time where another conversation begged to be mashed up with it, so here it goes:

Robert Scoble stated: “As for how bloggers can play in this process? I think we just are going to come up short in coverage of campaigns when compared to the mainstream press.” I agree with almost all of what Robert did on the trip (based on what I’ve seen so far). That said, I think Robert had his PodTech/video blogging hat on a little too tightly here when making this statement that covered his listening ears!
Seperately, Karl Long in his debunking of “Social Media is Dead” stated: “To me the difference between social media and “the media” or “big media” is control and influence. Social media is primarily controlled by the participants, by the viewers, readers, listeners etc. where as traditional media is primarily controlled by an organization with a narrower agenda like a corporation, or a political party.”

So how do we build a mandate to create government listening via social media to take election control out of the hands of money and the media elite? Likely through a series of incremental steps towards a social media society. Call it “average Joe accountability politics” (Open to better names if you’d like).

In Paul Tsongas’ 1992 campaign book, “A Call to Economic Arms: Forging A New American Mandate”, a pre-Internet era publication, still stands as one of the most comprehensive documents a Presidential candidate has ever published about what they would actually try to achieve after being elected. I urge you to familiarize yourself with this document as it A) is amazingly relevant after 15 years (many of the problems remain) and B) Paul argues in the document that a mandate is necessary for a new President to press through a change agenda.

The end of that 72 page document contained the following which serves as a platform for empowering the masses to have their voice heard. It serves as a blueprint for innovation minus the blogs and social media tools of today:

We will be what our culture empowers us to be.

To strengthen our common culture must be our common mission. Recognition of, and dedication to, that mission is the mandate of our leadership. It doesn’t lend itself to ten point programs and quarterly reviews. It will be a discussion that will never end. It should never end. The journey to renew America’s spiritual base will take us back through our history to harvest the wisdom of that history.

We will revisit our ancestors’ thinking and learn once again to pay homage to the basic values that made America. Those values, long since articulated, will then serve as our safe passage to the future.

In our collective veins flows the blood of those who crossed the Bering Land bridge. Of those who endured deprivation during the winter in Plymouth. Of those who suffered in the holds of slave ships and on the decks of immigrant ships. Vietnamese boat people. Hungarian freedom fighters. Salvadoran refugees. On and on.

Above all, there flows the blood of those who died for America. For our freedom. Not so we could be cynical, or uncaring or second best. But in the belief that we would be worthy of their sacrifice in how we lived our lives and how we honored our country. This is the New American Mandate.

VII. Return to Purpose

Adversity tests the character of individuals. It also tests the character of a people. We are now being challenged by outside forces that seek to erode our standard of living and by others that portend environmental and energy cataclysm. In addition, we are challenged by internal forces that are undermining the fabric of our social order.

What would our ancestors have done? Simple. They would have accepted the challenges and pushed ahead secure in the knowledge that their destiny was within their control. Avoidance was not what they were all about.

So it must be with us.

Facing our challenges forthrightly is how we honor the labors of our forebears. It is our moral imperative.

But, more importantly, it is the source of our hope. We are a blessed America. It is our will and determination that will deliver us. Let us, again, unleash the spirit of the American people and again secure our future and the future of our descendents.

Let us return to purpose.

This is a post on how to use social media to improve accountability in political campaign. As such I’d like to learn which Presidential campaigns are actively monitoring the blogosphere. Please leave a comment if you have an official association with one of these candidates and feel free to discuss this post in your own communities. Thanks!