One-Step Bitly URL Shortening from the Address Bar

Recently I had a chance to spend some quality time with the folks at Bitly, getting to know more about their terrific service. There's a wealth of data there if you dig in. Not all of my Twitter clients integrate with the Bitly API yet, but I find myself seeking out apps that do allow me to enter my account info since it gives me rich analytics and (hopefully) insights into how I can be more effective.

If you like Bitly, here's a killer tip that Andrew Coen, Bitly's co-founder, recently shared with our team. You can actually shorten a link in just one step right from the address bar in any browser, even a mobile one. All you need to do is either enter "j.mp/" or "bit.ly/" before the address of the page you're on and Bitly will then automatically shorten it for you. What's more, if you're logged into Bitly and it's integrated with your Twitter account, you can tweet right off the page it refers you to.

This has been a real time saver for me and also has me using their service even more.

Video: Bill Gross, CEO, TweetUp, Idealab

Last week in LA I had a chance to visit Idealab, an incubator that pioneered pay-per-click advertising a decade ago. The purpose of my visit was to meet CEO Bill Gross and his team and to learn more about TweetUp, an innovative new service that, I believe, has a great shot of creating a demand-driven ad network around Twitter.

(Idealab, not TweetUp specifically, is an Edelman client.)

Unlike Twitter's own ad platform, TweetUp will surface not only tweets but tweeters. What's more, they will be integrated as widgets/columns in key ecosystem apps like TweetDeck and contextually via large sites like Business Insider.

To me, TweetUp's greatest appeal lies in that it's a mix of paid, earned and social. In order to receive the best position for your tweets, the TweetUp system needs to perceive that you are an expert in the topic/keywords you are bidding for.

For more, see the above short video I shot with Bill Gross, their CEO.

Social Luxury is Personal

The following piece was also cross-posted on Forbes.com.

Social Luxury is Personal

Social networking started out as "things" - destination sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube that we browse to and use to connect with our friends, family and co-workers. Now, however, it is poised to become "everything."

Just like water blankets the Earth's surface area (and sustains life), social networking technologies will soon cover 70 percent of the web. This will breathe ubiquitous global social connectivity into once solitary experiences. The impact for luxury brands will be dramatic. For decades, luxury brands have appealed to an insatiable emotional need that millions share. As a society, we aspire to purchase products and services that make us feel wealthy, either financially or emotionally. This often changes with the times - and it's steered by local cultures as well - however, the trend spans centuries.

This raises a key question: in an era of ubiquitous social networking - one where every online and mobile experience is enhanced by the lens of our friends - how will luxury be defined?

Where once a single TV show or a celebrity could define luxury, that's no longer the case. The media environment is too fragmented today and it's increasingly personalized by the connections we keep. This means that luxury is fractional. A brand that's achieved luxury status among thirty-something moms in LA could be considered taboo by the same demographic in NY - all because of the types of social connections we keep online and how they shape our worldview.

With this dynamic in mind, here are three steps that luxury brands should consider to either maintain or grow their iconic status...

1) Make every online experience a social one

Every day consumers are talking about luxury brands online. This means we form opinions based on what we see/hear from our friends. To succeed, luxury brands will need to turn once static experiences into social ones that are personalized so that the right message is communicated at the right time to the right group of individuals in the right context - all while appealing to their higher emotional needs.

Facebook's new social tools, introduced last month, are a great first step in this direction. Levis (an Edelman client) have deployed them across their web site, turning every experience into a social one that's filtered through our friends.

2) Develop coveted social objects

Luxury goods are coveted. Many of us want to be seen carrying our Louis Vutton handbag or wearing a Coach watch. This could translate online as well. Just as millions hope to one day be able to afford luxury brands, they also might want to achieve some level of similar status online within their social network.

Enter luxury brands. Every single one of the iconic companies on this list has the opportunity to create and launch social objects that consumers can earn the right to embed and/or share on their social profiles.

3) Map and tap networks

Every individual has role models. It used to be, however, that celebrities dominated this space. Today, however, it's possible that our view of role models is changing, perhaps moving closer to the company we keep online. Luxury brands that can understand how role models are formed, map these networks and tap into their power will be in the best position to capture attention in a highly personalized environment.

Thoughts on Media Reforestation and Algorithmic Journalism

Over a year ago, I published an essay on Media Reforestation. In a nutshell, it's my belief that all tangible forms of media will be in sharp decline or extinct in just a few years. I followed that up this week with some more thoughts for the folks at WeMedia, which you can read in full or view as a PDF below.

Media Reforestation Part II: Algorithmic Journalism

It's a quiet April Saturday afternoon in Long Island, NY and I am holed up on the second floor of the Book Revue, writing this essay on my iPad. I could have not chosen a more ironic venue or a more ironic device to pen a think piece about the impact mobile devices will have on media consumption and creation. The Book Revue is one of the last independent bookstores on Long Island, a sprawling New York City suburb. However, it remains a popular hangout for local book lovers, families and singles. The store even attracts a who's who from the literary world for big book signings. That said, I know that my writing days here are numbered. You see, the Book Revue, just like countless of video rentals stores, arcades and newspaper printing presses, will one day fall victim to Media Reforestation.

In less than five years, all tangible media - everything you can see, touch, taste and smell - will be in sharp decline or extinct. This includes printed books, magazines and newspapers but also DVDs and disc-based video games. With connectivity slowly becoming ubiquitous and devices like the iPad, smart phones, the Kindle and netbooks becoming popular and relatively affordable, it's far less likely that we'll be consuming media in anything but a downloadable form. Every day a newsprint reader dies and she isn't replaced.

Media reforestation has been well chronicled. All of these devices are a runaway hits. And all one needs to do is look at the sorry state of newspaper industry financials to see that digital pennies are not, in the words of former NBC exec Jeff Zucker, ever going to replace analog dollars anytime soon. But the changes to come will be even more destructive. That's because they will involve algorithms.

Last decade the big story was how technology enabled all of us to become publishers. However, the reality is quality content remains work. Many people don't have the time or the motivation to consistently churn it out. Truth: those who did manage to attract large followings all worked their tails off to get there. People like Gary Vanyerchuck, Chris Brogan and Jeff Jarvis, just to name three, attained and scaled their influence thanks to a mix of talent and elbow grease. But that was the first chapter of media reforestation. Chapter two is about to begin and tablets and smart phones will take center stage, enabling us to all subconsciously publish and media to form like magic out of algorithms.

Content creation today still requires intent - thought then action. However soon we will be able to put our gadgets on autopilot and have them automatically contribute to the process even when they are safely tucked away in our pockets, pocketbooks and backpacks. When these millions of gadgets become powerful, always-on servers it will revolutionize media.

FourSquare is the beginning. Although the emerging location based service "only" has one million users, it is able to spot trends in data and surface news. When I checked in during the 140 Character Conference earlier this month, Foursquare was able to detect a swarm of check-ins from this one location and determine that news was breaking here - and it awarded me a special badge. Now imagine that our gadgets collect and publish automatically and on a mass scale. FourSquare could turn that data into a news service on the fly. It's services like these that will totally reinvent media, yet again, by opening up to the masses.

Servers - yes, servers - in our pockets will collect data automatically (and anonymously). Cloud services will aggregate this information and - on the fly - create media, some of which we will consume on the go. These consumption patterns will create more data and start the cycle all over again. Rich devices like iPads, iPhones, Blackberries, Kindles and their successors will collect, serve and assemble media on our behalf and in a very personalized way.

Here's what this might look like...

Novelist John Grisham recently made news when he became one of the last holdouts to make his books available on the Kindle. It's a one-size-fits-all experience. He writes. We consume - and on connected devices.

In the near future however, Grisham (or whomever is his successor) will write just the beginning of a novel and then publish it electronically - omitting the ending. Those who purchase it will determine the ending, but not in a manual, Choose-Your-Own Adventure way but in a much more personalized fashion. Ebook devices will spot trends among these Grisham readers and shape the ending based on data they're willing to share in exchange for a more personalized experience. Books won't be seen as static creations but living breathing things. Novels will have several endings that are based on the speed, physical location and duration of our collective reading habits.

It's not just books that will be reshaped by always-connected devices. As more of us consume video on the go, the same algorithmic model could reshape all storytelling, including TV and motion pictures as well.

Just as during the rise of social media, however, the news business will be the first to feel the impact of algorithmically generated media. As our devices begin to collect and share information in aggregate about our habits and environment (privacy concerns not withstanding), local and topical news sites will seamlessly form on the fly, curating torrents of tweets, news stories, images and videos about breaking news.

Tablets and smart phones are powerful, connected devices that we tote everywhere. But as more of them multitask and publish what we allow them to, automatically, it will further revolutionize media and perhaps one day make editing a relic of the past.

Algorithmic Journalism.pdf (105 KB)
View this on posterous

The Case for Converging Your Personal/Professional Networks

Image via Snorgtees

Do you "cross the streams?" In other words, do you co-mingle your personal and professional social networks? This is a tough question to answer. In this essay (which is also my Adage column next week), I present the pro-side of the argument. I also opened up this discussion on Facebook.

As I travel the world, however, I am hearing distinct argument for keeping these separate. LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner and I discussed this yesterday. He (correctly) called me "an edge case." So with this in mind, consider this Part I. In Part II I will look at the case against "crossing the streams."

As always, I am eager for your views. Help me learn. This is a very confusing topic for many people.

Professional, Personal Social Circles Converge...and Confuse

About a year ago I became Facebook friends with Rob, the dealer sold me my car in 2007. Now I don't have any connection Rob other than this single transaction. Yet whenever I bring in my wheels for service, he is able to recall some nugget from my activity stream. You see, Rob is smart. He is using social networking to maintain a level of "ambient awareness" about his customers' total lives and he lets us do the same about him. This instills trust. And trust is the future of business. In all likelihood this helps him drive more sales.

Social networking is rapidly blurring the edges between our professional and personal spheres. Many of us co-mingle colleagues, clients, friends and family within our social networks. Others do not.

While the long term effects are uncertain, this convergence is creating mass confusion among marketers and other corporate types who for years have worked to ensure these circles remain separate. They maybe fighting a losing battle since this train left the station long ago.

The days of us yelling "yabba dabba doo," sliding down the dinosaur's tail and leaving work behind at five are long over. Thanks to the proliferation of mobile devices, we are constantly connected to our work. On the flip side, we don't hesitate to stay close to our personal networks while we're in the office.

Social networking is amplifying and accelerating this existing trend. It's forcing all of us to make choices about how public we are willing to be - and what, if any boundaries we want to maintain between our networks. Regardless of your individual stance, this subtle, yet important change is going to reshape how you and your colleagues do business.

The societal norm, it seems, is tilting more toward what thinker Jeff Jarvis calls "new publicness." This is especially true among younger workers. And while there are certainly major pitfalls - ask anyone who lost their job over questionable Facebook photos from a weekend party - there are clear benefits as well. Caveats aside, I believe that that those who allow these circles to overlap will build stronger ties all around. At our heart, we're all human beings, not automatons. If we open up and let our customers, colleagues and partners see even just a little bit of our total activity streams, we will break down barriers, instill trust and more lasting business relationships.

This isn't black and white of course. Each individual will have to decide just how public he/she wishes to be and to what end. This is why Twitter, a public channel, may not be right for everyone. Yet Facebook, which allows the user to tailor his/her specific updates just to a single network, could be.

The good news, however, is that publicness is not an all or nothing equation. You can start small, as many are. Some employees, for example, are solely using internal social networking tools like Yammer to update their colleagues on their day-to-day activities. Other more extroverted types, meanwhile are tweeting their passions. Some even log their total lives on FourSquare, all in full view of their professional and personal networks.

Ultimately this is an individual choice and it must take into account a lot of factors, including corporate policies and industry norms. But in an age where transparency begets trust, there's a lot to be gained on an individual and institutional level for those who decide in some way to live some of their lives in public and converge networks. Just ask Rob, who I will definitely buy from again.