Google just built a social media platform—and it’s not called Orkut.

By inserting a small snippet of code, Google’s new social media initiative, Friend Connect, will allow any web site to, "get social features up and running immediately without programming—picking and choosing from built-in functionality like user registration, invitations, members gallery, message posting, and reviews, as well as third-party applications built by the OpenSocial developer community."

The idea is to allow everyone, regardless of money or bandwidth, to integrate social interaction on their web site. I have a huge crush on Google.

In the words of Google’s director of engineering, David Galizer’s:

Google Friend Connect is about helping the ‘long tail’ of sites become more social. Many sites aren’t explicitly social and don’t necessarily want to be social networks, but they still benefit from letting their visitors interact with each other. That used to be hard. Fortunately, there’s an emerging wave of social standards—OpenID, OAuth, OpenSocial, and the data access APIs published by Facebook, Google, MySpace, and others. Google Friend Connect builds on these standards to let people easily connect with their friends, wherever they are on the web, making ‘any app, any site, any friends’ a reality.

Continue reading "Google to Unveil Friend Connect Tonight"

We’re all (too) familiar with the "This program has stopped responding" message when Windows decides to crash something. You know that little message that pops up after the error? The one that says "Report this bug?" What does Microsoft do with that information? Does it actually go anywhere? Does it suffer the same fate as Dwight’s complaints against Jim, stuck under Toby’s desk in a big trash bag? Or does that information actually help Microsoft debug and improve their OS/software?



The problem is, I have no idea what happens to that information. And that’s why I hardly, ever, hit "send." Why would I make the extra effort to contribute something if I have no idea if my contribution will matter? This, unfortunately, is an all too common error in customer service and marketing (which, I happen to think are one in the same). Companies, or inviduals for that matter, request user generated content with the promise that it will help "shape the future" or "make a difference," but what happens all those suggestions?

Continue reading "Liars! Why Talking to Your Customers Is So Important"

We're always recommending that clients complement their new web sites with marketing strategies that will drive traffic. With online marketing talk focused mainly on the realm of social media, well, call me old school, but it's inspiring to see impressive returns using good old fashioned email.

One of our clients, Rebecca Shambaugh of SHAMBAUGH Leadership, came to us last summer to redesign her company's site. She was open to the idea of blogging. She had just written a book and was no stranger to getting her ideas and experiences in writing. However, her core audiences aren't guaranteed blog readers. So what better way to reach more traditional corporate audience members than by email, a tool they're comfortable and adept at using?

So, whenever this CEO publishes a new post on Becky's Blog, she also sends out a quick email to about 2,500 contacts. The email is usually just the first paragraph or two of the blog post with a link to read the rest on the site itself. Since she started this process in March, she's averaged a 37 percent click-through rate of those emails that were opened; meaning that of the 20 percent (500) or so who open the email, nearly half (250) click through to read the rest of her posts online. 

That's about 250 readers who likely don't have RSS readers and who almost certainly would not have received her blog content otherwise.

Email catches flak with spam abounding, but it's still a viable, core component of business online.