Over at the FastCompany blogs, Dave Teten and Scott Allen summarize a few key thoughts from their book “The Virtual Handshake”, including 10 Implications of Social Software, breaking it up into personal and business thoughts.

Its an interesting read for anyone NOT immersed in social networking, web20 news, and those not familiar with “The YouTube”.  For the rest of us, its all a bit old hat with many of the observations self-evident.

In fact, as I was reading it, I was struck by how the very nature of social software makes it very easy to get at least a cursory grasp of it .  I mean, every single service is almost free, so no cost barrier; every one of them makes an attempt to be user friendly; and the popular ones at least probably has a significant cohort of friends or family already using it, making the “social” part easier to navigate.

For any individual interested in how these technologies are impacting the way we work and interact, they’d best dispense with the books and just dive right in.  

The water’s nice and warm — just watch out for the occasional shark.  And the fact that, in some parts anyway, there’s a reason why its a little warmer than others ;)

FREE SWAG ALERT: “The Virtual Handshake” is available as a free download — be wary, though, its asking for quite a bit of information.  In case anyone does ask, I DO live in Swahili — the broadband is a bit sketchy, but we get by. 

So, there is an interesting and lengthy article on BuzzMetrics, an arm of Nielsen, on its Enterprise level services, in which they leverage their ability to track buzz in the socialsphere to help established companies understand what people are actually saying, thinking and feeling about their products and brands.

The article is interesting because of the examples they use (the one about Lexus advertising being viewed as Gay adverstising, for example), but also because it acknowedges something that many bloggers and forum goers have known for years: people talk about brands whether or not brands like it or not. And the element of control that brand managers think they have has been illusory for years.

What I wonder about it all, though is the human element of brand watching in the socialsphere — sure, there are fancy analytics and data mining tools to suss out trends, buzz, and no doubt rich tools to visualize it all.

But the real key in it all is context and understanding.

The NYTimes article does mention the following, for example:

While their specific approaches vary slightly, all use some form of Web search engine, analysis programs and human analysts to help organize data and provide a narrative that clients can understand, Ms. Riley said. Their ultimate goal, she said, is “to find out the deep thoughts of consumers and help clients understand what’s happening in their markets.”

How good are these human analysts? No idea.

They might be great.

But if you’re looking for opinions with perspectives and a view point – well, doesn’t that sound like what bloggers do? The answer, of course, is a resounding “Yes.” Sure, BuzzMetrics tracks blogs as well, but to aggregate the feeling and opinion behind a particular brand, thse brand monitoring companies should reach behind the data to opinion leaders amongst their brand “fans”. They might be more visible in some industries than others, but the model behind this idea for me would be political bloggers.

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While I tried to grapple with how to describe how utterly lame Time’s Person of the Year was (its “You”, thanks to the rise of user generated media, web2.0, YouTube, MySpace etc etc), there were three things about it that I happened upon

1) Its been done before, by Business2.0

2) It shows absolutely no creativity or conviction — saying “You” is like saying “we don’t have the gumption to choose a real winner, so EVERYONE wins!”

3) There was someone who echoed my sentiments even better. If salty language offends delicate sensibilities, don’t go here. A small tasty tidbit: “the entire point of the exercise is that everyone doesn’t get a medal for participating. The purpose of the issue is to address the person or persons who, for bad or worse, most affected world events of that year. So they picked… everyone? Well of course everyone affected world events the most … “

So, perhaps you were like me in thinking “Why is Google extending its long tail AGAIN by branching out into yet another non-core competency area?” While its price is competitive, $10 per private registration, its not at a price point that is going to convince anyone to suddenly switch providers. So what gives? Why bother? Is it merely to add another little bit of digital swag that the Google faithful will buy into? (literally?)

I don’t think so.

(Well, maybe on the last one)

The reason why Google may be getting into Domain Registration may not be to “out GoDaddy GoDaddy” (although I wonder what the “Google Girls” would look like), but rather, the introduction of these services is to create the infrastructure for a more complete package of services. What might that complete package be? Well, although it is currently be offered piece-meal, or a la carte at the moment, one wonders whether or not Google is secretly trying to compete with Microsoft.

WOT?

That’s right. Microsoft.

Microsoft had announced to limited fanfare about a month ago exactly how it would compete in the Office “live” arena; and it wouldn’t necessarily be with web enabled productivity tools. Rather than directly compete with the likes of Writely and Google Spreadsheets with its own Word, Excel and so on (although they may still be coming out), Microsoft is entering the small business arena with a complete web hosting package for small businesses.

Could Google be eying a similar prize?

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Well, I took an unplanned absence from DJI while I was taking care of some issues at the BlogHerald, mainly involving some of the behind the scenes administrative work.  The last time I had an entry was four days ago, which seems like an eternity, actually.  Anyway, the BlogHerald is a huge work in progress, and with Matt Craven’s departure, as well as Thord’s and Muhammad’s, there are some giant shoes to fill.  Having said that, we have an interesting roster of bloggers who have agreed to step in and help take the BlogHerald to a new and different direction.

Stay tuned for more developments on that front.

There have also been some behind-the scenes technical issues at this blog as well … namely the fact that Dreamhost doesn’t allow the include(), file(), require(), or simpleXML() functions.  Anyway, I have learned some dear lessons the hard way, and will now let us the professionals deal with what they’re great at.  I’m a doctor, dammit (and blogger) … not a code ninja! :)

Anyway, with all that out of the way, apologies two and half people who may have missed me (and one who even said that he felt uncomfortable with my lack of daily rantings), and back to the show!

The FTC issued an official opinion stating that people who endorse of a products, and who are compensated for their efforts, must disclose the nature of that relationship to their “customers”. While its not a law per se (as far as I can determine), sometime in the future, persons or companies in violation of this position might be the target of cease and desist orders or civil fines in the order of millions of dollars.

Yikes.

With the rise of social media, “Word of Mouth” marketing has come to the forefront with regards to marketing messages and firms salivating at getting their messages through blogs, social networks and social bookmarking sites. While it looks like some agencies are “getting” it, by getting genuine consumer participation, interaction and cooperation through these technologies, others are taking a ‘black hat’ at these social media methods.

Whither through the creation of fake personalities, fake blogs, or paying people on the sly to shill your product, all of these techniques are at their heart, duplicitous. And its the last of those that are the target of this FTC statment.

In the blogosphere, one of the most obvious stakeholders in all of this is PayPerPost, who currently doesn’t require its bloggers to disclose that they are blogging on behalf of an advertiser; clearly, this is a violation of the spirit of this opinion. If it goes any more beyond an official “statement”, we can look to PayPerPost to evolve into a more disclosure-minded model, such as ReviewMe. Although with its efforts behind disclosurepolicy.org, a web tool that allows people to create a disclosure document (with varying degrees of accuracy), its a bit baffling why they simply don’t go all the way and force their bloggers to sign up and their advertisers to agree.

The industry which may not as obvious (at least to the technosphere) is the affiliate marketing industry which is responsible for moving billions of dollars worth of e-commerce by itself. While there has been much talk about the necessity of disclosure with outfits that directly affect blogs, there has not been a similar discussion within affiliate marketing — probably because it predates PayPerPost and its ilk by … oh, seven or eight years.

One of the biggest examples of affiliate marketing is the Amazon Associates program; like many other affiliate programs, the Amazon pays its affiliates when they refer people to their site, and those people purchase its products. The controversy comes in, as I see it, when enterprising individuals create websites or blogs full of content to rank on a search engine, and then embed them with affiliate links … that are not identified as affiliate links.

A great example is carbuyingtips.com, which looks fairly innocuous at first.  But beyond all the helpful information are clues to how carbuyingtips.com pays its bills (and more)
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You know, if I my actions were publicly called out as “desperate” on behalf of a “soulless” product, I would certainly take every chance I got at vindicating myself publicly when the data became available. Showing that he’s a big enough guy (or that this stuff just doesn’t matter anymore to him since he’s moved on to a VC firm), Jason Calacanis has opted to not to crow out from every rooftop, but instead, let the news speak for itself.

Of course I am referring to the fact that Jason Calacanis was publicly chastised for poaching top Diggers about five months ago and his model of paying users at a social network site.  With the news that Digg users are seeking alternate forms of payment, allowing private concerns (i.e. marketing, PR firms, and businesses) to potentially control what Digg users see, click and ultimately go, it seems like the “Netscape” model has vinally been vindicated … from a security standpoint.

[the jury is out as to whether paid navigators, in and of themselves, are a critical factor in producing a successful social bookmarking site]

By paying users, it avoids (but does not eliminate) the possibility of this kind of corruption, and allows a level of transparent control (not an oxymoron) that just doesn’t exist on Digg.  And I think its worth repeating one issue: For Digg, deleting all of the top 20, 30, or even 100 accounts will not matter, because another 20, 30 or 100 accounts will rise to the top … and THEY will be the subject of incessant soliciting of their services.

I don’t know if the “Netscape” model will ever be adopted at Digg, but as a means to stave off the creation of a “blackmarket” for traffic in the social bookmarking arena.  And that’s something that Jason Calacanis should be proud of.

UPDATE: Downloadsquad.com recently posted an article suggesting that Digg was rotting form the inside out, due to the juvenile antics of their users, corrupt scandals, and more. Well, the Bury Brigade has got to them as well.  Sure enough, their article was submitted, and promptly buried.