Google, You Open or Closed? Make Up Your Mind Then Call Us

You probably have read by now about Google SearchWIki, a new feature that lets registered users comment on search results and URLs for one's own use and more importantly to share them with the broader world. I am all for opening up the web to comments but this entire launch was botched not thought through. And now (as of this writing) it's gone. Already there are reports of vandalism and spam too. Did anyone not think this would be a PR nightmare?

Unlike Wikipedia, there's no way for users to edit each others comments. You can only vote them up or down. Google should take a page from the Wikipedia and Mahalo playbooks and build a community around the feature that would self police such an open wiki. Otherwise, of course people are going to run amok on the world's biggest online stage! That's like turning a kid with a massive sweet tooth loose in a giant candy store. It's going to be a haven for spam.

What's worse, Google once again is showing what a chaotic culture can engender. Rapid, massive innovation that delights users? For sure. But it also can create massive inconsistencies and PR nightmares. For example, why are Google News Comments vetted by humans at a snail's pace. Yet, SearchWiki is open to all with no mechanisms to prevent abuse. Or why does Google Knol encourage writers to verify their identity? Yet, with SearchWiki Google opens its marquis service to unfettered user editing. It makes no sense. Epic Fail.

Google, call me when you make up your mind.

LATER:: Marhsall Sponder points out that it's still available with sound in Google Labs.

EVEN LATER:: It's now back with no apparent changes. Too bad.

New Commenting Features Added

TypePad this week rolled out a new commenting platform that can be integrated into virtually any blog. They also added profiles. I have incorporated both here. This now brings threaded discussions to the blog and also - if you're registered with TypePad - the ability to reply by email. This will allow me to respond to your comments more frequently than I have in the past.

links for 2008-11-20

• 
  
  15 Tips for Writing Effective Email | ThinkSimpleNow.com
  (tags: Email writing Tips)
  
  
• 
  
  Yahoo! Glue - all you need, all in one place.
  
  
  Great to see Yahoo innovating - "Get great images, videos, articles, and more all on one page."
  
  
  (tags: yahoo aggregation Search)
  
  
• 
  
  13 Ways Social Media Can Improve Your Career | davefleet.com
  (tags: Web2.0 socialmedia careers)
  
  
• 
  
  Good blogging is simple: Write good posts (and be thankful) » Brazen Careerist by Penelope Trunk
  (tags: blogs writing Tips)
  
  
• 
  
  The Flack: PR Week's NEXT Conference
  
  
  Summary of Wednesday's conference
  
  
  (tags: PRWeek events PR Trends blego)
  
  
• 
  
  End Of An Era: Boston's Out Of Town News To Shutter - InformationWeek
  
  
  Newsstands are starting to shutting down because of online readership. Maybe I should revise my 2014 bet.
  
  
  (tags: Trends print Magazines Newspapers media Journalism mediagreen)
  
  
• 
  
  HOW TO: Market to Bloggers According to Timothy Ferriss
  
  
  Best advice ever - and common sense. The message for PR people, increasingly, is be seen and build relationships. This is something we do really really well. However, it also helped Tim that he uses the same tools we do.
  
  
  (tags: PR socialmedia Marketing Blogs timferriss)
  
  
• 
  
  Case Study: Ford’s Approach to Social Media | Altitude Branding
  
  
  Great interview with Scott Monty. Don't miss the part at the end about how Ford measures.
  
  
  (tags: CaseStudies ROI socialmedia PR marketing autos Ford)
  
  
• 
  
  Setup Firefox To Use Minimal Screen Estate
  
  
  I love posts like these that help me do more with less. It's why I read blogs. Great tips for netbook lovers.
  
  
  (tags: Firefox netbooks simplicity Tips)
  
  
• 
  
  Do You Ever Do Any Real Work?
  
  
  Fred Wilson on the ROI of blogging.
  
  
  (tags: Marketing blog ROI Measurement)
  
  

Making Gmail Your Gateway to the Web

Photo Credit: Adapted from Gateway Arch by docdevore

For the past five years my browser home page has been set to either Google.com or iGoogle. (I briefly flirted with the New York Times as my default but have integrated their feeds everywhere else.) This week I switched it to Gmail. With all of the features they have been adding lately, particularly through their Labs, Gmail is unquestionably my virtual Swiss Army Knife. It is not only my communications hub. It is my knowledge base and to some degree my feed reader. Some say it is becoming an enterprise dashboard - it is. It is my gateway to the web. (Note they added themes today!)

In this post I outline some recent ways I have tweaked my Gmail Personal Nerve Center by connecting Gmail with other web services. (Other posts on Gmail are here.)

Search the Web from Gmail

Gmail's search capabilities are top-notch. It's a big reason why I store tons of articles, factoids and even documents there. However, it's easy to miss the little button that says "Search the Web." These days I begin most of my web queries from Gmail. I even get a head start using their advanced keywords. (For example I type in new york weather when I want to know what the temperature is.) This will become even more useful once Gmail adds its SMS features later this month. Once that's back up you should be able to use it with Google SMS and get back search results via IM.

Update and Track Your Social Networks via IM

I am slowly in the process of trying to shift more of my communications out of email towards social software and IM. (More on this topic soon.) Still, I want an easily accessible record of all of these streams. So I am using Gmail much of the time to post to these services and also receive updates.

If you set up Ping.fm you can update all the major social networks via Gmail Chat. I post to Twitter via Ping.fm. I receive back replies by subscribing to a Twitter search feed for @steverubel via IM via notify.me. In addition, I receive Facebook alerts also by running my feed through notify.me. You can find your Facebook feed here. (You can also IM Friendfeed and Yammer directly and receive updates back from them too, which I do.)

Subscribe to High Priority Feeds and Alerts

I love Google Reader but I also like to be able to subscribe to some of my feeds via Gmail so that they are archived in a single place online and offline (via IMAP). However, I want to make this easily managed. So, I put all of my high priority feeds in Google Reader into a folder, make this folder public and then subscribe to the feed in Newsgator Online. Newsgator offers POP delivery so I have Gmail automatically fetch this account, scoop up the feeds, filter/archive them and tag them with the label "Feeds."

Track the Day's News with Gmail Clips

I am a news junkie and like to stay in the know. Gmail makes this a snap with Gmail Web Clips. I have pretty much standardized on the New York Times as my source of choice. In addition, I like to be able to track Techmeme too as well as all the news on the Presidential transition. So I have added a bunch of feeds to Clips including one from the awesome Times Topics site that stream into Gmail via a nice handy little news ticker.

Use Gmail as a Writing Tool

Sometimes writing can be intimidating, but it doesn't need to be. I like to start my writing in Gmail and then move it into other services where I can do more. For example, I wrote this blog post in Gmail and then sent it directly to TypePad. I also start documents here and then email them into Google Docs for additional tweaking (eg word counts, etc.). Finally I have a huge swipe file of articles and ideas stored in Gmail for inspiration and reference (for more on this concept see this great post from Write to Done). LifeClever offers some more thoughts here on using email for writing. See my other Gmail posts for how to use the service for storing ideas.

Build Links in Gmail to All Your Other Services

Finally, last but not least, when I do need to access other services they are all a click away in Gmail. I have added the Google Calendar and Google Docs gadgets to my sidebar. I store my To Do List in Google Docs so it's usually the top item in the gadget. In addition, I store my bookmarks in Gmail by exporting them to HTML and sending the page to myself using Ubiquity, which I pull up using Gmail Quick Links. Also, the links at the top of the page put me a click away to secure https versions of some of Google's other big services.

I keep adding to my system as Google rolls out features, but to me Gmail is my gateway to the web and the one web site I could never be without. Gmail turns five in the spring and I amazed how they continue to make it even more awesome once you start to really tweak it to your needs.

How I Tweet Plus Thoughts on Twitter's Future

If you haven't seen it, Darren Rowse has a great new blog about Twitter called TwiTip. This week he and his followers interviewed me about how I started using the service, how I Tweet today and what companies who want to engage on Twitter should do. I won't steal his thunder, but want to share an excerpt here on a potential business model and where Twitter will be in five years time ...

If you were on the management of Twitter how would you monetize Twitter? (or would you) - question from @sachendra

It seems to me that Twitter is sitting on cash. It just needs to
unlock the value. One way is through insights. I bet marketers would
pay for advanced insights on what people are saying/doing. The other is
through contextual search. Twitter should do a deal with Google or
Yahoo to put pay-per-click ads on all the permalink tweet pages and
then share the revs with users. The other idea is to monetize
search.twitter.com, also with contextual ads. I think the only reason
they’re delaying this is to make sure they don’t alienate their
community. That’s the biggest risk they face.

Is Twitter just a passing fad or will it still exist in 5 years? How do you see Twitter evolving? - question from @AnitaBruzzese and @justcreative

I have been a participant and observer of online communities since
1988 - that’s 20 years. There’s no community where I am spending time
today that was not born in the last five years. If I think back to what
I used over the years it spans from Compuserve to AOL to GeoCities to
Facebook, Twitter and Friendfeed today. No community has ever had
staying power. TIme will tell if Twitter can break the trend. I don’t
see a moat there yet.

Further, they’re at risk at becoming just infrastructure as people
interface with the site through all of the other ports, most notably,
apps, Facebook and Friendfeed. I hope I am wrong. Five years may not be
a timeframe long enoughf for change.