Janet Lee Johnson | The Art of Marketing

In a hilarious post (okay, so I have an odd sense of humor) over on Domain Name Wire, Andrew makes some pithy observations on Web 2.0 trends. It seems that some TechCrunch faithful were irritated that a post appeared on the TechCrunch site about Moniker (a domain name reseller) being purchased by Oversee.net for $65M - saying Moniker was not Web 2.0ish enough to be covered on TechCrunch.

“Only domainers even know about this Web 1.0 company. How is this Web 2.0 news?”

In Andrew’s words:

“You know buddy, you’re right. Moniker is a web 1.0 company. Here’s how it’s different from a web 2.0 company:

1. It has paying customers
2. It is profitable
3. It has a real business plan (not supported by ads)
4. It wasn’t counting on a buyout from Google to pay off its investors
5. See #1

Another reader commented:

You know it’s crazy to see a company like this [Oversee.net], with their basic yet clean looking website make giant purchases like this.

Notice that they haven’t even changed the copyright date in their footer. =)

Yeah, isn’t it funny how a company without a whiz-bang ajax web site can actually function and make money?? Amazing!

But maybe these guys are on to something. Maybe Moniker needs to “web 2.0″ itself so it can increase its value in Oversee.net’s hands. Here are some suggestions to make that happen:

1. Give domains away for free. Hey, valuation is based on the number of registered users, NOT profits! And couldn’t this be an “ad-supported business”? That would be cool.
2. Add a bunch of useless ajax widgets to the home page.
3. CEO Monte Cahn should spend 50% of his day writing a blog about the business rather than focusing on growing the business.
4. We need some social networking aspect here. How can you expect to grow your valuation if “social networking” isn’t in your tag line? Moniker needs a Facebook widget if it’s ever going to make it in the web 2.0 world.
5. Add “Beta” to the company’s logo. I know the company has been around for about a decade, but if you aren’t in beta then you aren’t cool.

By implementing these web 2.0 requirements, Moniker could easily be worth “one billion dollars” in a couple years. Google or eBay will buy them out, right?”

And in a final burst of fun, he commented on his own post that he forgot the most important thing - that Moniker should change its name to Monikr - “Gotta get rid of that last vowel if you want to fit in!”

Hmmm… I wonder if that domain is available? Someone could make a FORTUNE with it!

In a hilarious post over on the aimClear Blog, Marty Weintraub marveled SEMPDX Accepting Pitches to Speak With Me @ SearchFest 2008.

The smart folks at SEMpdx have thrown open a contest to anyone who wants to speak on a panel with Marty and me at the upcoming SearchFest 2008. Todd Mintz posted content rules and information about the panel here. The contest closes 1.24.

When asked how it felt to be turned into a prize, Marty said:

“Like the dragon waiting for the village to bring me my annual white-veiled Maiden….”

Oooh, Marty. Those who know me are really going to enjoy the notion that I’m going to be on a panel with a guy who uses that kind of metaphor!

Of course, I probably should be worried, as Marty has been called the Lester Bangs of SEM.

This all portends that our panel is bound to be great fun. I can’t wait to hear who the third person we’ll be sparring with. Perhaps they’ll show up with full battle armor, or perhaps with the sanity to stand between Marty and me… either way, I hope you can show up on March 10 for the SEMpdx SearchFest fun!

Believe me, I won’t be wearing white…

Via Center for Media Research:

“According to a survey of US journalists by Brodeur, a unit of Omnicom Group, blogs are not only having an impact on the speed and availability of news but also influencing the tone and editorial direction of reporting. The biggest impact of blogs, says the study, is in the speed and availability of news, while 61.8% of the respondents said that blogs were having a significant impact on the “tone” of news reporting, and 51.1% said they influenced “editorial direction.

The majority of journalists said blogs were having a significant impact on news reporting in all areas tested, except news quality. The biggest impact has been in speed and availability of news, and secondarily to tone and editorial direction.”

I am not surprised to see this study’s results. All research points to people going online to check information first. Journalists are no different. Speed to information is one of the reasons we’ve given up printed papers in our home - saving paper is the other.

Last night’s news was last night’s news.

Brilliant acronym. Found a story about it on Scott’s blog over at Attensa. Brilliant concept to (ahem) share…

One of his clients has a few set rules for collaboration across the enterprise:

“Here’s his advice on bringing the technological and cultural initiatives together.

• Get knowledge brokers and connectors into the pool of early adopters for Enterprise 2.0 pilot programs so they can share their experience and lead by example.
• Cultivate the skill of knowing where and how to find relevant information.
• Reward team members who find and share those gems of information that can solve a problem or advance the business. Tag it, forward it, republish it.”

Thanks for sharing, Scott! (Via Attensa)

I had a cup of tea today with a marketing colleague who was new to Portland. We found we had much in common, especially when discussing shared interests in social media, new marketing paradigms and the growing intersection between the IT and marketing departments.

These are two departments with many common goals, dependencies and business alignments and (at the same time) few common languages.

I am lucky enough to be able to bridge the two worlds - knowing just enough about IT to be dangerous, but able to find (or fake) my way around with willing compatriots. It’s like going to Paris and making an attempt at speaking French - trying will get you a long way…

Hence, I try to use this forum to speak to both worlds about trends marketers should be aware of AND be able to speak to, and marketing needs the IT department can fill.

Here’s my latest flog at the state of information overload, which is only getting worse (but at the same time it can be so much better through the use of smart tools). I hope the marketers and IT guys are ‘getting’ this. Share this with your favorite “other department” compatriot - you’ll be doing both of you a favor…

Managing and Measuring Attention Across the Enterprise

As any regular reader knows, I’m a big fan of RSS, a protocol web sites use to deliver information to you when it appears. (It’s that good old fashioned notion of having a magazine delivered to your home, vs. going out and searching through the newsstands for the latest issue.)

The problem with RSS?

While it gives you great access to information, RSS dramatically increases the amount of information presented to you (depending on your search parameters) and in itself contributes to information overload. (When I fire up my Attensa feed reader I generally can have more than 700 articles waiting for me. Full disclosure: Attensa is a client of mine; and a tool I use daily for online news, research, monitoring client mentions and competitive information.)

Just like I am, enterprise 2.0 knowledge workers are beginning to understand the value of RSS; and are bringing their personal readers (which are all free, by the way) into their work environment. Suddenly, there are desktops with ALL SORTS of little RSS applications running.

Suddenly, There’s a Problem for IT

It drives IT’s support and service costs through the roof when unapproved, (sometimes poorly written) applications start interacting and mucking with other apps, network services, etc. That’s a bad thing.

The good news? There are enterprise-class, managed RSS systems available now that are not only secure, scalable and reliable (which speaks to our friends in IT); they track a wealth of information that’s invaluable to the business (which speaks to our friends in marketing).

Imagine the possibilities of this kind of understanding within your organization:

• As users interact with information, their behaviors provide clues as to what is important to them, and what is not important.
• Attensa can monitor these behaviors and create a smart profile of each user’s attention.
• These individual profiles drive intelligent filters / views that each user can use to consume relevant information.

As a result, I can focus my attention on information that matters - and not have to wade through the 700 pieces of information it makes possible.

It’s like my iPhone figuring out how I type, and fixing my fat thumb mistakes for me.

It’s amazing to me that a tool can ‘watch’ hundreds of factors and learn reading behaviors and content preferences as readers interact with information. For an entire enterprise full of users, it will watch:

• Which subscriptions are read most frequently?
• How many articles are being read, given the number available?
• How long does each user spend reading an article, given its length?
• Is the information being forwarded to others?
• Is it being tagged or republished?
• Or, is being ignored completely or deleted instantly?

Then, individual reading behaviors are matched to content cues in the articles themselves including:

• Content keywords
• Authors that are read frequently
• Search terms being tracked

As user behaviors change, the “attention analytics” will evolve with them. I am training my RSS reader to prioritize my information for me, and serve it to me in a unique, personal manner. Smart.

Better yet, though, when you add the Feed Server™ , individual profiles are aggregated across workgroups, product teams, even the entire enterprise; delivering rich reporting and analytics that drive a collaborative, more intelligent understanding of how knowledge spreads across the enterprise.

This is waaay more powerful than web analytics. This is attention analytics. Now we’re getting closer to getting inside the heads of our employees; being able to watch what grabs their attention, what keeps it, and what isn’t cutting it. As a marketer, if I could have that insight, I’d be tuned to that channel. Perhaps that’s why RSS is coming soon to televisions…

And for knowledge workers, suddenly the glut of information they’re facing is more manageable - because it’s served up based on their individual preferences.