Category Archives: Social Media

The Remarkable Success of Sean Quigley’s Little Drummer Boy Video

The tools we have today to unleash creativity are utterly amazing. Recording a version of the classic song “The Little Drummer Boy” is not terribly remarkable… but… creating your own arrangement, playing all the instruments and singing, recording and editing a really fun video, and then getting 1.4 million hits on YouTube… and all at the age of 16… THAT is remarkable!

If you haven’t seen it yet, just watch 16-year-old Sean Quigley’s video:

As a result of the amazing interest in the video, the high school student in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, (note the red “Canada” gloves in the video) has now been on the major Canadian TV and radio networks and has been receiving attention from around the world. As articles in USA Today and on CTV News can attest, he now has an agent and is in fact selling copies of his song online.

This interview on CTV News back on December 2nd gives a bit of the background:

Of course, at that time, the number of views was still only in the thousands. Now, as I’m writing this post, the number of views is closing in on 1.4 million… and I’d expect it to probably go even higher.

What I find so cool about this all is that Sean Quigley did all of this himself with the help of a few friends.

He shot it all using a basic DSLR camera. He recorded all the instruments and vocals into a computer. He did the editing/post-production – I don’t know using what software but there are many inexpensive choices.

No fancy commercial production houses. No extra producers.

Just a talented individual able to make use of tools he had available.

He didn’t need to ask permission of anyone to upload the video.

He just did.

It’s awesome to see… and he and his family and friends certainly have a good bit to be proud of… I’m looking forward to seeing what he’ll do next!

And I’m looking forward to the continued creativity to come out of all the people in this world with the easy access to tools… and an open Internet on which to publish their work…

P.S. Those interested in following what is next for Sean Quigley can follow him on Twitter or on Facebook.

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On The Need To FOCUS In Our Age Of Hyper-Distraction…

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I was amused by a bit of synchronicity yesterday. I’ve been giving a lot of thought lately to how to better focus my attention. The “bright shiny objects” of our social media world have tended to pull me away from what I should be doing and suddenly I’ve found that it will be near the end of a day and I haven’t accomplished those things I’d set out to do in the morning.

“Oh, look, there’s a butterfly…”

It’s VERY easy to get distracted. Go to do research and pull up an article… only to start clicking on other headlines and photos… and then somewhere in there remember what you were researching…

The topic of “attention”, or our lack thereof, has been much on my mind.

So I was amused to find two articles yesterday that both hit this topic straight on:

Developing Razor Sharp Focus with Zen Habits Blogger, Leo Babauta is actually a blog post written back in July 2011 by Jane Genovese, who also produced this wonderful mind-map/graphic that I’ve included in this post. (A larger version is in her post.)

Jane discusses a free ebook from Leo Babauta, “Focus: A simplicity manifesto in the Age of Distraction” and lays out her own suggestions and commentary about how to focus more. It’s a well-done post with, again, a stellar graphic. (I’ve subsequently downloaded Leo Babauta’s ebook, too.)
Don’t blame the information for your bad habits is an interview over on O’Reilly’s Radar site by Mac Slocum of author Clay Johnson about his upcoming book “The Information Diet” that hits many of the same themes. While this interview is admittedly self-promotional as Johnson’s book is an O’Reilly book, it nonetheless has some good thoughts in it. Here’s a quote I liked:

In other words, we don’t suffer from information overload — we suffer from information overconsumption and poor consumption habits. The solution is just as simple as a successful food diet. It’s about building habits and healthy choices for yourself, and sticking to it.

Tim O’Reilly also had a good comment to the post that included in part this:

Time is a precious resource. You don’t get it back. Thinking through what you want to produce as well as what you want to consume, and how much time you’ll allocate to each activity, is a good start. But there are a whole host of productive steps you can take to remove cruft from your information diet.

Both of these posts came to my attention yesterday… ironically, of course, both through social media. The first through Google+ and the second through either Facebook or Twitter (and possibly both).

Regardless, they do hit on a crucial topic – how do we manage our time and our attention? How do we focus on what is important? How do we not get distracted by all those forces around us that entice us?

I’ve been taking some steps over the past few months to increase my focus (including of note to only read email at particular times of the day)… and I need to take even a few more.

What steps are you taking to tame the distractions?

UPDATE: Chris Brogan wrote a great post on this topic on Dec 2nd: YOU’RE NOT AS BUSY AS YOU THINK

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How The NFL Loses With Its Copyright Takedown Notices On Video Clips

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I’m not a regular football fan. Sure, I enjoy watching a game if it’s on somewhere and I might watch the playoffs or Super Bowl… but watching football is not part of my daily/weekly routine.

Still, when I saw an tweet about the video of an amazing touchdown run, I went to go look because such feats are often great to watch.

But… after pressing the “play” icon, here’s what greeted me:

Yep, the NFL apparently issued a copyright claim to YouTube to have this clip taken down.

IT WAS A 43 SECOND VIDEO CLIP!

43 seconds.

My initial thoughts, of course, were extremely negative to the NFL (“What a bunch of losers!”).

My second thought was… oh, well, there are a ton of other interesting sports and other video clips to see.

NFL Loss #1: Any Potential Interest I Might Have Had

Right then, the NFL had a moment to engage with me and remind me again of how exciting the game can be!

Maybe I might have said to myself that I should watch games some more and perhaps take up my brother-in-law on his invite to come over and watch the Patriots play. Maybe I might have read up more about what was going on within football. Maybe I might have looked for some other football video clips.

Regardless, I would have been more positive about football and the NFL.

Instead it just leaves me with a negative attitude toward the NFL and no further interest in looking for more football info.

I’m even less a fan now.

NFL Loss #2: Viral Sharing

Note the “Share This Story” part of the screenshot above:

Consider those stats:

831 people liked this page, with the result being that the link to this page went out in the new Facebook Ticker to be potentially seen by their friends. How many people might have seen that? hundreds? thousands?
293 people specifically shared this post out into their Facebook NewsFeed, meaning that their friends would see it in their feeds. Once in Facebook it can be shared out again by others. Again, how many people? hundreds? thousands?
8 people clicked the “tweet” button on this page. Countless others could have tweeted it out through other tools, or retweeted those tweets.
25 people emailed it using this interface.
4 people “+1″‘d it.

And this only shows the numbers of people who shared the story using this widget. The story may have been shared many other times via other routes. The link to the video on YouTube may have been shared out through many other ways, too. (And YouTube no longer shows the stats for the video, so we have no idea how many people actually watched it.)

So how many people saw the link to this story? hundreds? thousands? more? fewer? Hard to say… but some number saw it and did what I did – clicked over to see what sounded like an interesting video to watch.

And all of them got the same message… that the NFL had a copyright claim on this particular video.

And odds are that they won’t blame the news story or the Huffington Post for linking to the video… instead they’ll mentally blame the NFL for asserting a copyright claim.

And there will be no further re-sharing…

43 Seconds

Now I completely “get” that the NFL needs to defend the copyright it has on it’s content. I create my own content and have done so for many years both for myself and my various employers. I fully understand the need for protecting intellectual property.

But a 43 second video clip?

Granted, it might have been the most exciting 43 seconds of that entire game… I don’t know, since I didn’t watch it.

But would it have killed the NFL to make that short clip available?

It would really be “marketing” for the sport of football. It might have gotten more people talking about the sport (“Wow, did you see that amazing touchdown run?”). It would have spread virally as people shared it even more with others.

I know, I know… it’s a “slippery slope” and if the NFL doesn’t assert it’s copyright where it can then it opens the doors for many others to post videos. And I don’t know the rest of the story. Maybe this particular YouTube user has repeatedly posted copyrighted video clips. Maybe there’s an “official” video clip that the NFL wants people to use… maybe… maybe… maybe…

But still, 43 seconds?

P.S. And a quick google search shows that the clip is still available on other sites…

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Klout’s Other Major Fail: Violating Historial Integrity/Accuracy

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There is a fundamental rule in database theory that when data is recorded in a database, it is “immutable“. It cannot be changed. Applications may act on the data, but the integrity of the underlying data is intact.

Consider a database tracking temperatures over time. The temperature sensor at my house might record into the database that it is 31 degrees F right at this time and date.

That data should always remain intact.

If I query the temperature database tomorrow for today’s temperature at 8am, the database should say that it was 31 degrees F. If I query the database 5 months from now… or 5 years from now… the database should always spit back the 31 degree temperature.

The historical answer will always be identical.

This is just a fundamental principle of databases that are tracking data over a period of time.

Klout’s Revision of History

In the ongoing kerfuffle about Klout’s changes to their “influence metric”, nicely summarized by Mathew Ingram over at GigaOm (lots of links to read), one point I haven’t seen made is this:

Klout revised its (and your) history!

Consider this… back on Monday when I wrote about how I disliked the way Klout is treating its metric like a game, I included this screenshot:

Now consider this screenshot taken right at this moment that shows my current Klout score and the trend of my score over the last period of time:

Hmmm… where is that “62”?

Instead Klout now shows that my score was 59-ish.

They changed my history.

Now, in my case, I don’t really care. My life will not be any better or worse based on whatever changes happen to my Klout Score. Makes zero difference to me.

But for all those people complaining on the Internet about how their Klout score dropped dramatically… not only did it drop, but…

YOU NEVER HAD THAT HIGHER SCORE!

You might claim you had a Klout score of 50, 60, 70, 80, whatever… but nope, you didn’t… the chart shows quite clearly that your score never achieved whatever milestone you thought it did.

Oops.

Changing Algorithms Without Changing History

Now I personally have no issue with Klout changing their algorithm to make it better. In fact, I applaud them for doing so. Algorithms need to change as more experience is attained and more data is collected.

I want better metrics.

So change the algorithm. Go ahead.

But personally I’d love history to be kept intact. Show the change in the algorithm NOW. Sure, the trend graph would show a big drop. Okay. Then, like in Google Analytics, we can all make a notation that the algorithm was changed on such-and-such a date and our score now reflects the new algorithm. No big deal.

The Counterpoint

But what if the algorithm had a fundamental error in it? Shouldn’t you go back and revise all the data?

Consider my temperature example – what if I found that the thermometer in my house was actually off by 4 degrees? That it was actually 4 degrees colder outside that it was showing?

Wouldn’t it make sense to go back and change all the historical readings for that sensor to be 4 degrees colder? (Assuming I could pinpoint the time at which it started being inaccurate… or just made the assumption that it had always been inaccurate.)

And yes… there’s certainly a school of thought that says you should go back and revise history. The other school of thought would be to leave history alone and indicate that from this point forward the sensor data will now be more accurate.

It’s obvious which school of thought Klout fits in.

Klout’s Ecosystem “Problem”

The “problem” Klout has… and I put “problem” in quotes because it’s the kind of “problem” any small startup would LOVE to have… is that they’ve had a lot of companies and developers using Klout’s APIs to build other applications and systems that interact with Klout’s metric. In fact, Klout is claiming over 3500 “partners and developers”.

And you have to imagine that some % of those developers are engaging in tracking Klout scores over time. They want to track the trend of their own score… or their competitors score… or their clients’ scores… or whatever.

All of that trend data just got rendered inaccurate.

It doesn’t matter if Application X says that your client had a Klout score of 43 last week…. the official Klout database now says that the client’s score was really 32… and it never was 43.

Oops. Now the application has “bogus” data.

Klout’s Reporting Problem

Plus, if you were presenting reports or charts regularly to a client (or your management) showing them their Klout score, now you have to go back to the client and say “I’m sorry, but Klout revised their algorithm and you never had that score I told you.”

You look like an idiot for trusting a metric that changes like this.

Of course, you’re not alone, as Bob LeDrew so eloquently pointed out in his post yesterday “A Klout Upside The Head“… obviously many people are taking Klout’s metric very seriously. (And way more seriously than I would even remotely consider.)

The fact that some people are using Klout’s metric for business decisions would, in my mind, point to Klout needing to consider historical accuracy/integrity a bit stronger.

Sure, change the algorithm if you need to… but keep the history intact so that your partners and users don’t look like idiots.

A Wake-up Call?

In the end will this kerfuffle make people be a little bit more critical of the Klout Score?
Will people realize it is only one of the metrics they should consider?
Will they take a look at other metrics that are emerging?

As the CEO of (Klout competitor) PeerIndex noted yesterday, there are many different ways of defining “influence”… and the market and all these companies are very young.

Will people realize that they shouldn’t blindly rely on one simple metric?

While I’d love to believe people might – and we can only hope that at least some people will, I guess I’m cynical enough to think that people want nice, simple, easy metrics… and Klout is delivering that. Give it a few days for all this to blow over and sadly people will probably be right back caring about their Klout Score.

Only now perhaps they’ll take occasional screenshots to be able to back up later claims about the score whenever Klout does its next revision of history…

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Sorry, Klout, But I Don’t Care At All About Your “Game”!

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In one image, this is perhaps what annoys me most about Klout’s Klout Score metric:

Yes, even more than the fact that Beyonce can have a Klout Score of 50 without ever having tweeted (or even knowing if that Twitter account is, in fact, actually Beyonce’s). Even more than that, this bothers me:

Your Klout Score fell -1 points in the past day. Share more content and engage with your network to increase your score!

Not that my score fell. As you might have guessed, I really don’t care about what my score is.

What bothers me is the implication by the second sentence that you should care about your score and that you should take actions to increase your score.

Now… DUH!… I do understand why Klout does this. They of course want you to care about your score so that you can nurture it and further buy into all their programs so that they can someday attain their motto of being “the standard of influence”.

I get that.

But it doesn’t mean I have to like the attempts at psychological manipulation.

What annoys me is that this attitude feeds right into those people who want to “game the system“… to figure out ways to influence the influence measurement so that they can rise higher.

It’s a game to some people.

And that’s fine.

Farmville is a game, too… and some people enjoy playing that.

The issue is that those of us out here in the PR/marketing space would like influence measurement metrics that we could use … and that we can grow to trust as having some value. (In the sense of being part of the equation of assessing someone’s influence online.)

But it’s annoying when the company behind the metric tries to get people to play that game… to try to get them to take actions to increase their score. If history has shown us anything, it is that some people out there will ALWAYS try to game the system… it’s just part of human nature.

But does the company behind the metric need to encourage that behavior?

Why not just truly rate people based on the content they produce and the interaction they have with other people online?

This is what annoys me most about Klout. Influence measurement shouldn’t be treated as a game.

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The Hardest Part of Podcasting Is…

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… probably not what you think it is.

It’s not the technology… as that is in so many cases the easiest aspect. Download a tool like Audacity to your computer and start talking into your built-in mic. Boom. You’re done. Or point your phone’s video camera at someone and press the record button. We’ve got a zillion different devices that will record audio or video.

It’s not the post-production… although that can take some time depending upon the level of “professionalism” you want to give to your podcasts. Some people are fine with just posting raw “(wo)man-on-the-street” interviews up with little or no post-production. Some people want to do some editing, add intros and outros, etc.

It’s not the on-air voice (the “talent”)… as there are many podcasts out there that demonstrate that you don’t need to have the proverbial “radio voice” to still have a show that builds a community of listeners. Of course, having (or developing) a good voice does help, but it’s not the hardest part.

It’s not the marketing of your podcast… the world of social media has made it so much easier to get the word out. Good shows will spread virally and people will learn about what you are doing. MANY tools out there to help spread the word.

It’s not the story or the outline of what you will talk about… although admittedly this CAN be one of the harder aspects – to craft the outline of what you are going to do over a period of time, to think about the audiences, to figure out what story you are going to tell.

No, the absolute hardest part of podcasting is none of those, although all of them can be challenging in different ways.

Instead the hardest part of podcasting is…

… keeping the podcast going!

It’s easy to start a podcast… it’s far harder to maintain a podcast.

To keep doing it… week after week after week after week after week after…

For every podcast like For Immediate Release that has been diligently going on week after week for over five years now (just passed episode #621) or the VoIP Users Conference that has been going on for 4+ years, there are a hundred other podcasts where the hosts had brilliant ideas, the best of intentions… yet didn’t keep the podcast going.

The Internet is littered with the remains of thousands of podcasts that started… (and yes, the same could be said of blogs).

One of my own is amidst those remains… from 2005 to 2008 I produced and co-hosted Blue Box: The VoIP Security Podcast. It was great to do and we built up quite a strong community of listeners. But then jobs changed… life changed… new kids came into the world… and so we ended the show’s run. I keep thinking about bringing it back… but I’m conscious of this “hardest part” of podcasting. If I do bring it back, I have to be ready to commit to bringing it back on a regular basis.

THAT is the hardest part of “podcasting”.

Keeping the podcast going.

IF, of course, you are trying to create a “show” that is ongoing. If you are just putting up some audio interviews… well, those might just be “downloadable audio files” and not really a “podcast”, per se. Or they might be a “podcast” that has a predetermined lifespan… such as for an event or conference. There are many such podcasts around an event or date – or for a set series of topics – and they are great for what they are: a “body of work” with a defined beginning and end.

But if you are trying to create an ongoing show that attracts a community of listeners… then this “hardest part” comes into play. When I’ve been consulting with clients about starting up a podcast, I stress this fact again: it’s easy to start a podcast, but far harder to keep it going.

Are you ready to commit to the long-term run of the show?

To do it week after week after week after week?

THAT is the hardest part of podcasting.

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The MomsLikeMe.com Debacle and the Need For the Open Internet And To Control Your Content

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A ton of online communities of moms are dying this week. After three years, the “MomsLikeMe.com” websites are shutting down on Friday. From the FAQ:

All of the MomsLikeMe sites will permanently shut down on Friday, October 14, 2011. At that time, everything that currently appears on the site, locally or nationally, will no longer be accessible.

Why? The standard lame corporate-speak:

The market has evolved substantially since we launched three years ago and there are many new and different ways for people to connect and engage. We feel we can better serve this community through the many new and exciting digital initiatives we will be developing and rolling out in the future.

The reality is that the site is entirely owned by Gannett (publishers of USA Today and many other newspapers and sites) and for whatever reasons they have decided that it no longer makes sense to operate this site. Perhaps they weren’t seeing enough ad revenue. Perhaps it wasn’t hitting whatever “metrics” they wanted to hit.

Regardless, it is shutting down – permanently – in 2 days. Finished. Over. Done. Gone.

And you can see in the comments to the blog post announcing the shutdown the collective “WTF?” of all the moms who had participated in the site. (Note, of course, that you can only see these comments until Friday, at which point they will be gone, too.)

We’ve seen this movie before. Remember back in April 2010 when Ning shuttered all its free communities? Or in September 2010 when the Vox blogging service shut its doors?

This is not a new story…

People invest hours and hours of time in a service operated by a company.
Company decides to shut down service… or goes bankrupt… or gets acquired.
People lose the community and/or the content they created.

At least Vox provided a way to export your content and Ning provided an upgrade path (for a fee).

Gannett says the site is dead… and THEY OWN ALL YOUR CONTENT. Again from the FAQ:

Can I take posts or other data posted on MomsLikeMe and use if for other purposes (e.g., post it on a blog, elsewhere on the web or publish it in a book)?

As outlined in the Terms of Service, the information that has been posted on MomsLikeMe is the property of Gannett.

Translation: You lose. We own it all.

Of course, just to rub salt in the wounds, the FAQ answer right below that is:

Can Gannett take posts or other data posted on MomsLikeMe and use it for other purposes (e.g., post it on a blog, elsewhere on the web or publish it in a book)?

Yes, as outlined in the Terms of Service, Gannett has the legal rights to re-use public information posted on the site for other purposes.

Translation: You lose. We own it all.

Unfortunately, the good folks who invested their time in the communities of the MomsLikeMe.com sites are learning a harsh lesson in the realities of the NOT-Open Internet. When companies control the platforms and services – and don’t provide a way to export or move your content/data – you are entirely in their control. And if they decide to shut the service down…

… you lose.

The same issue can be said of Facebook (which itself has an insanely onerous Terms of Service), Twitter and so many other services. Google+ is also that way… but right from the start they have provided ways for you to get your data out of the service should you want to do so.

This is why we need to be concerned about issues around the “openness” of the Internet and about “data portability”. If we choose to host our content – or a “community” – on a particular service:

Who owns the content?
Can you move the content if necessary?

We need to be looking at ways to ensure that we are in control of our own content and our own destiny… and not the companies and organizations that may run the services we use.

It’s too bad Gannett couldn’t have done more to help all these folks who have invested so much time to move their content elsewhere… that would have been the charitable and “right” thing to do.

Alas, they did not… and the moms who invested all their time lose…

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