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Advertising: Is There a Chink in the Facebook Armor?

Interesting conversation today about the poor click-through rates on Facebook. Should the FB folks and their investors be worried? Who knows. But some perspective: FB is positioning itself as a tech company, not a media company, and there are other ways it can make money. But will it get a Google-like valuation? Guess that's the big question.

eBay v. Craigslist: A Conflict of Interest

So, I just heard the news that eBay will be competing with Craigslist. eBay will have a tough climb -- in addition to the fact that Craigslist has a tremendous brand, with a loyal following, eBay may have a serious a conflict of interest. As a substantial investor in Craigslist, eBay may not meet the test, legally or socially. We'll see.

Community 2.0/From the Trenches: "Do that Again"

"Report from the Trenches" is my favorite Community 2.0 session so far. Lee LeFever did a great job moderating a panel with three old-world companies that are doing new world things: Intuit (George Jacquette), Lenovo (David Churbuck), and SAP (Mike Prosceno). Several things made this a great panel:

--the entire thing was a Q&A with the audience. It's the most interactive general session at the conference, so far, and the audience was really engaged.

--the panel said no to the stage seats, and instead sat on the front of the stage.

--the content was great: just straight talk about what works and doesn't work.

Favorite anecdote: David Churbuck talked about how Lenovo had a "no comment" blog policy until the CEO saw how the blogosphere helped spread a great story. Message from the CEO: "do that again."

Community with a Capital "C": Who Will Follow Craig Newmark?

For the past few weeks, I have been struggling with the way people in my tribe — marketing people, PR people, communications consultants — use the word community. There appears to be a lot of interest in creating communities that serve corporate interests, but little desire — or interest, or awareness — in serving the larger community — the world at large. The latter, I believe, is the real opportunity for business leaders in the new, always-on world. Why? Because the frenzy to create corporate communities may only aggravate the problems that communities are trying to solve — the fracturing and atomization of society, information overload, and — as one consultant noted in a presentation yesterday at Community 2.0 — the universal need to “belong.” There’s an opportunity for businesses to become better citizens, not by exploiting the need to belong, but by providing services to people — not customers — in this difficult new world.

At Community 2.0, I moderated a panel with Craig Newmark, whose very presence at the conference — he stood out — helped me to understand this opportunity. Among the many business leaders that showed up to speak and mingle at this conference, Craig was one of the very few that serve Community with a capital “C.” I was reminded that craigslist does not own a community; rather, it serves the community. He may spell his company name (a little c) in lowercase, but it’s a quiet way of expressing his commitment to a very big idea.

Not every business can or should follow Craig Newmark. But if more businesses look at the way he sees community, they may pause before starting one of their own. There are other ways to serve.

Community at the Red Rock

I am sitting at the back of an auditorium at the Red Rock Hotel in Las Vegas, where everyone just shared a champage toast to kick off Community 2.0. In a couple of hours, I will be moderating a panel entitled "Lessons Learned from Non-Business Environments." The panelists: Craig Newmark, Scott Meyer, and Alexandra Samuel.

The topic intrigues me. First, as a Silicon Valley PR professional, I am often asked for advice on community-based marketing. I have strong opinions and biases on this topic.
And as many of you know, I write an almost weekly column on cliches in the workplace, and if there is one word that is under great stress these days, it is probably community. A fair number of people in my world have wondered if marketers are using the word to whitewash their commercial interests. Perhaps that's true ... sometimes. But I think there's a simpler explanation. As marketing and communications continues to socialize, the rules of business and society will collide. And, of course, when rules collide, language collides. I do believe that marketers are using the word community too loosely, but not because they are evil, but because they have not taken enough time to closely examine the word in the business context.

The panel I am moderating looks at the two worlds in question -- the business world and the non -business world. In addition to looking at best practices, I will ask the panel to also discuss

(1) What is community?

(2) Does business have any business using this word?

(3) Assuming the answer is sometimes yes, what are the rules of engagement -- best practices, worst practices, ideas for the future?

The Top Seven Things I Like About Ning

It's been some time since I last checked out Ning, Marc Andreesen's latest business project. Last time I really looked, Ning was positioned as a DIY application platform. Today (I was nudged to look), they're in business as a DIY community platform. I like what they are doing for many reasons, but let me sketch out the main points here:

(7) It's DIY. What made blogs take off as a business and social phenomenon is DIY. Ning appears genuinely committed to making communities as easy to develop -- on the tech side -- as blogs. Already they look like the Six Apart of communities (though they compare themselves to Home Depot). Not a bad place to be.

(6) You can customize it. Dead simple, yes, but it would be limited if customers weren't able to customize. Ning is addressing this challenge on several fronts, including a developer program.

(5) Scale means wisdom. Another big plus is the potential scale of the Ning world -- a community of communities. If it grows, as it should, customers will learn from one another, and innovate.

(4) Marc Andreesen is at/near the helm. Generally, I'm not a big fan of celebrity executives. But I believe that Marc's credentials from the Web 1.0 world will give him an interesting platform for the Web 2.0 world. Note: Gina Bianchini is the CEO; would be great to see her emerge as a leader in this market.

(3) Ning builds the platform at the user level. For many reasons -- mostly economic -- we are in a user-centric world, and Ning has figured out that the best way to build its platform is to recruit individuals before they join or build communities. This gives customers the birds-eye view of the Ning landscape, and provides them with options. We can't credit Ning for this idea (others came before them), but they are running with it.

(2) It's cheap. Free at the basic level, $19.95 for the "premium service."

(1) They are providing multiple media formats, at the very beginning. If we have learned anything from the YouTube phenomenon, it's this: lots of people like blogs, but almost everyone loves video. At a time when Web companies are being challenged to look beyond the computer screen and into the larger world of communications, Ning is peeking ahead.

Of course, this doesn't mean that other approaches will not work. And there will be lots of room -- business -- for companies who can help others to build groups, networks, communities. And as I wrote earlier today, technology is not even half of the equation; social media requires social sense, and a Ning community -- like a Typepad blog -- is nothing without that social sense. But as a platfom, Ning looks good from my perspective, and I expect other companies with similar approaches to enter the fray (others are already there).

Tribe Gets a Second Life

Big news today -- Cisco will acquire Tribe, the beleageured social networking site. I've been wondering when something like this might happen. Tribe may have lost its brand appeal in the age of MySpace, Facebook, Second Life. But with the Cisco brand -- which has always been about "networking" -- Tribe might get a second life: as a platform for businesses who want to build their own social networks. In today's issue of The New York Times, Brad Stone looks at some of the challenges that Cisco and its customers will face. Buiding a community ain't easy; the technology is not even half of it.

UPDATE: Mukund Mohan believes that businesses are being driven by "MySpace envy," not ROI. I'm not sure about that. People I speak with are very interested in the business case for communities, and the conversation revolves around things like "lowering the cost of customer acquisition," "scaling the scope of communications," "reducing time to implementation" (with networks designed to capture ideas for product development). It's more about peer production than "peer pressure," but the latter plays a role at a higher level: innovation.

UPDATE: It always amuses me when bloggers and journalists jump all over a company before that company has had an opportunity to speak. Brad Stone's article today in the New York Times scooped the Cisco announcement. Yet many are trashing the company for it's presumably stupid move (e.g., see Om Malik's post). We don't have all the facts yet, or the context. But in the meantime, Cisco would be smart to provide a comment via its news blog. We're waiting.

Apple iPhone Fan Site

Heard about this via Steve Rubel. everythingiPhone is probably the first of many fan sites. But will they be forced to change their name?

Jason Calacanis on People Verticals

Jason Calacanis looks at Digg's demographic and concludes that they are -- kinda -- a vertical. A vertical for "young, tech males (YTMs)," that is. That's a great vertical, and Digg serves them well, notes Jason. But if Digg wants to go beyond that group and include other folks, they will struggle because the Digg "community eats them up and spits them out when they try and participate."

Reminds me of conversations I've been having with clients about another demographic that's beginning to amass power and cohesion on the Internet -- moms. I hear about a new mom's group practically every week, and last week came news that MomJunction.com, a social-networking site, recently raised $1.5 million in funding.

These are the early days, perhaps, of a new community demographic, and you better believe that marketers will be thinking about that community this year. But will they know what to do? Mom groups, too, might spit out strangers -- especially strangers eager to sell them goods -- who try to "participate."

Community Sharecroppers?

Are user-generated sites exploiting the masses -- the "sharecroppers" of the new Internet? Techdirt disputes that perspective in this piece.

I'm not sure anyone is being exploited, but I do wonder about the sustainability of some of these projects. If people aren't getting much in return, they will leave. Always the problem with collective efforts....