Pretty Clever Things

TED Talk from Clay Shirky: Why SOPA is a bad idea

msdean — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 21:45:37 +0000

Look, I knew SOPA, and it’s little sister PIPA (at least that’s what it sounds like), was a BAD IDEA. But after yesterday’s punky little protest from Wikipedia, I full grokked the tragic implications SOPA could have ON MY OWN LIFE.

Obviously, after a very trying Wednesday, I cannot live without a roster of somewhat questionable information available for any trivial thought that floats through my pretty little head. I did not get to find about the salacious details of Wallace Reid’s 1923 death from morphine addiction, nor could I confirm which years Mike Cammelleri previously played for the Calgary Flames. Hell, I had issues even confirming the spelling of

Cammelleri.

So what’s a gal to do when she knows SOPA is a bad idea, but might have trouble delivering incisive criticisms of SOPA at a cocktail party? Well, she waits til Wikipedia and the rest of the interwebs turns the lights back on and does her homework. After a lot of searching, reading, and looking into the middle distance with a serious expression on my face, I present to you the only SOPA take-down you need, Clay Shirky‘s TED Talk, “Why SOPA is a bad idea.” See, I knew it.

Listen and learn.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Facebook Changes, Again

msdean — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 15:07:17 +0000

It’s a little like when your friend gets a radically different hairstyle – it takes some getting used to. Facebook has made some changes and you can bet the bulk of your friends’ status updates for the next week will be about how much they don’t like these changes. My personal favorite, now you can tell Facebook, on a friend by friend basis, to show you all status updates, most updates, or only “important” ones. Huh?

While the changes to a personal profile are overwhelming, I’m still trying to figure out how this affects pages, the primary concern for businesses. It’s still a little foggy. I did notice on one client page that a right hand sidebar is displaying other pages liked by fans (i.e. profiles) of the client page. I’m not sure why I should care about that. Also, I’m guessing that when a profile likes a business page, the action will be relegated to the not “important” right hand ticker on someone’s profile, undermining the word-of-mouth element. Kudos to Facebook for marginalizing Farmville updates to the tickets, but this may be bad business for business pages.

Chris Taylor runs down some of the snazzier elements of this recent round of Facebook changes at Mashable, “Facebook Changes Again: Everything You Need to Know.” I think I need to know a few more things, but it’s a good place to start.

Oops… @Qwikster is not available

msdean — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 16:18:02 +0000

In working with small business clients, I often have to start with basics. I explain not only the how of social media platforms, but the why (clear communication with your customers) and the basics of branding (let’s use the same handle and icon everywhere, shall we?). One might think that large and seemingly web-savvy companies like Netflix would have dedicated PR and social media staff to grasp these basics and take care of these kinds of persnickety details. But not only did Netflix flub the new prices hikes when splitting its streaming and dvd rental services but not clearly communicating with its customers, no one thought to check if the Twitter handle @Qwikster was available.

Turns out, @Qwikster isn’t available. Turns out that handle is currently being used by a pot smoking, video game playing student who loves to tweet about his hobbies. And that joint smoking Elmo profile pic is waaay off brand. Currently Jason Castillo is taking a hard stand with Netflix and refusing to hand over his Twitter name or stop Tweeting about recreational sex. But I suspect his spliff account is going to get a boost very soon.

Netflix is a web-based business, yet still did not pause to consider the place that social media marketing occupies in its overall marketing and development plans. Social media is no longer optional, and from the perspective of shoveling in the social media trenches all day, it’s shocking that Netflix didnt pay more attention to this component when planning. Netflix has learned an important, if painful, lesson – as necessary and as effective as social media is, it’s also a very public way to fail.

Don’t be like Netflix! Check out David Amerland’s six helpful points to remember when approaching the set up of social media accounts at socialmediatoday.com.