With the formation of this seemingly new bubblet surrounding Web 2.0, there’s been a continuous discussion going on as related to why companies should be formed. I’ve seen arguments on both sides of the fence, from those that fully endorse building a company that’s designed for consumption to those that believe a company should be built only to generate revenue.

Call me old fashioned, but I tend to agree. When I decided to start syncPEOPLE six months ago, I had no intention of simply “flipping it”, though I certainly would be interested in knowing who would like us :) I’m a serial entrepreneur, been doing it straight for the last 13 years. In the beginning, I was more interested in the lifestyle aspects - you know, supporting myself, not working for anyone else, that kind of thing.

As of late, I’ve really wanted to grow something big. I’m asked often why we didn’t name our company syncEVENTS (we own it but choose not to use it for now). For me, the answer is really quite simple. In the long term view, we’re not just about events. In the near and short term, however, I think that the event industry gives us the most opportunities to do what we’re passionate about.. connecting people to each other and strengthening the ties that hold us together. We see hundreds, if not thousands, of additional uses of our technology and expertise, but we don’t indulge them at the time. It just doesn’t make sense to worry about everything when something is right in front of you.

Looking at the space we’re in specifically, it’s really amusing to me that we’re trying to pioneer in this direction. In many respects, it’s really not glamorous at all. We don’t get to work with the Technorati crowd. We deal with industries across the board from science and technology to trades and supplies. Of course, that’s only one side of the story. On the other side, it’s a tremendously fertile industry that contributes billions of dollars to our own economy. It’s an industry that’s responsible for bringing millions of individuals together to learn and share ideas. What’s not to love about that?

Best of all, we’ve never considered AdSense as part of our revenue model.

As my older brother recently told me on the phone, “Take it easy. You’ve put in the hard work and it will happen.” Yup. Work hard to create value for everyone inside and outside of your organization - how can that be a failure?

Ahh, you know, it’s that time of year. Everyone’s making their lists and validating them twice. I want to thank everyone that’s given me some of their extra cycles this year reading my various rants and raves. It’s been such a hectic few weeks here I can’t really begin to explain how much is happening.

I’ll be postly lightly over the next week or so. I’m hoping to do a series of posts next week that talk about the “gifts” I’ve received this year - there’s been so many it’s hard to have time to list them all but I will try. And I’ll be making that list, well, from the warmer weather in Florida. I’ve been begging and pleading with my own responsibilites these past few weeks to make it down to see my niece (turning 1 next week) and nephew (turning 3 in 2 months). I don’t see them enough and miss them plenty.

So today, after receiving one of the last checks we’ve been waiting for this year, I just bought my ticket and I’m on the way out in two days. If you’re in West Palm Beach or Lauderdale.. give me a shout - let’s have a drink and be merry!

Happy Holidays.

Well, I guess I haven’t been paying much attention to this end of the blogging business, but it seems there’s a growing trend of Blog to Flip going on. The premise is simple: start a blog, generate some content (and maybe revenue), then sell it off to the highest bidder. Hmm. I don’t know.

If you’d like to experience both sides of the coin, here’s two parties writing about the sale from both the buyer’s and seller’s side:

• Buying Blogs: The Blog Buying Checklist
• Flipping blogs

Considering my post yesterday on the Third Voice, this is something worth mentioning. I don’t personally think I would recommend this route to all but the rarest of clients. In a lot of ways, the notion of buying a blog brings back memories from philosophy class about the mind and soul - can one exist without the other? Does one live once the body dies? As somone who’s blogged for some time now, I can’t imagine this site being of much use or value without me here anymore - certainly, I don’t think it would be the same thing.

I’m please to send some love out to Peter Caputa who’s now doing some side work with the Root.net folks. As he recently announced, he’s been added to the team as a contract employee to handle some of the blogging responsibilities for the main company blog. As a starving entrepreneur, I’m happy and can certainly relate. Pete’s an ideal person to do this, his summary explains it all:

They intend to use blogs and a lot of other creative ways to engage their community. And engaging their community will be quintessential to making this all work. Without consumers as an active participant in heralding their own rights to own their own attention, this won’t work. So, my goal is to help foster that community. And in doing so, change the way advertisers, publishers, middlemen and investors (that’s new) interact with us individuals, who just so happen to consume stuff.

pc4media, “Me: Root.net Corporate Blogger”

I’ve been especially interested in this Third Voice model as it’s an integral part of our offering at syncPEOPLE. I alluded to some of these issues in “Fear of Commitment & Comments“. One thing I have spent quite a bit of time on lately is connecting bloggers to our clients. I like to call this the Third Voice since it’s really a voice from outside the organization. This is worrisome to many, for just that reason, but on the flip side they see the value in a new perspective, especially one that’s driven by passion (did I mention our company’s tagline; Connecting People, Passions and Pursuits).

What resonated with me about Pete’s new role is his acknowledgement of passion from both parties. He wasn’t hired just for writing skills or because he has loads of free time on his hands - he loves what they’re doing and they see the value in that. I’m not alone in this line of thinking. As usual, if you know where to look, or more importantly, how to look, you’ll find someone talking about what your thinking. For me, that voice came from Pat McCarthy’s comments on Pete’s new job:

This is interesting because there are many employees at Root.net who have their own blogs already, so it’s not like they don’t feel they could handle it on their own. They are specifically choosing an outside party.

What kind of effect will this have? Will the blog be more or less insightful because of it? It should definitely feel different from a normal corporate blog, but will people who become blog readers later on understand that the writer is not an actual employee of the company?

Source: Conversion Rater, “Hiring an Outside Blogger For Your Corporate Blog”

In response, I think the outcome can be quite positive. Naturally, a good selection process needs to be used in choosing the right blogger - it’s a lot like dating in many ways. In the end, blending viewpoints and capturing the conversation really do lend themselves to interesting experiences.

Sometimes, I think I must read all the same sites as Pete Caputa (though I am sure he reads lots more than me). Yesterday, he made and interesting post about the Long Tail and where the value will fall:

However, the aggregators, unless they are bought by AGILEAMY, will not have enough clout to be bigger than the transaction platform players, Amazon, Ebay, Google, AzoogleAds, etc, the ones that pay affiliates. So, the transaction platform players/the affiliate program owners, stand to make the most cash from the Long Tail. As more and more content is created for free, and aggregated so that the sum is valuable, advertising inventory becomes a lot cheaper.

Source: pc4media, “Where’s the Money to Be Made from the Long Tail?”

I have to agree entirely, well almost. Pete cites another post I came across that I wanted to comment on. it was written by David Hornick. Here’s a relevant excerpt:

… I have come to the conclusion that there are essentially two general classes of technology the will benefit economically from the Long Tail — aggregators and filterers. And while both aggregators and filterers rely upon the increasing volume and diversity of content to assure their value in the ecosystem, that growth of content will not have a material impact upon the value of any one piece of content floating somewhere in the Tail. The value will all inure to the benefit of the aggregators and filterers.

Source: , VentureBlog, “Where’s The Money In The Long Tail?”

I guess my only point of contention with the argument that only the “platforms” can win is what really separates a vertical from a platform exactly. In some cases, it seems that verticals have grown and grown, to the point that the platform emerges from its existence. As companies get attracted to more and more opportunities to reach the long tail audiences, they’ll naturally seek out those networks with the greatest reach, right? Sounds like the long tail all over ;)

I can see lots of circumstances where there’s enough abstraction in any one vertical that expansion is both natural and desired. I have a hard time believing that the big 3 or 5 or whatever it is now are where the plays are - naturally, there’s going to be another Google, right? Can shear size launch one from a vertical to a horizontal?

I use this analogy frequently, so I’ll repeat it here. Consumers don’t care nearly as much about horizontals (infrastructure) as they do about verticals (applications). Why should they? I don’t care how my electricity (infrastructure) works, so long as I can plug in my computer (application). Businesses fall into two categories (super generalization) - platforms and applications/services. We tend to call something niche when it’s focused on a vertical (another super generalization).

I guess I am trying to come up with the characteristics of a vertical that can actually make the transition. That’s, of course, a much longer conversation that I’ll save for another day when the sky isn’t falling!

I had a really interesting call today with a group we’re hoping to do some work with. At one point during the conversation, I stressed the point that “we’re about creating real communities that persist, not just relationships that can be monetized”. That might sound crazy since you would assume one couldn’t happen without the other, but it does.

There are quite a few players in the event technology business that ring the community bell - we’re certainly not the first. The more telling information, however, is really just what “passes” as “community”. It all depends on the circles you run with and how stringent you want your definition to be.

I would argue that simply aggregating a collection of people with seemingly similar interests and/or needs does not a community make. I’d also argue that simply generating “leads” fails to truly embrace the potential for monetizing communities.

As the conversation carried on, I stumbled upon another Gregism. I observed that the event industry, from my experience and research, really has heralded community as one of their cornerstones - but they’ve mostly bastardized the concept (and I mean that in the nicest way possible). They have indeed taken the points of view just mentioned, only now realizing just how much they could have had (as attendance and satisfaction level or decline). A good strategy must take both a short and long term view. For some, it very well might be too late to re-invent as other forces have already consumed the glue that once held the group together. For others, it’s a wonderfully promising time.

Fortunately, we’ve been finding more and more groups and individuals that share our vision and desire the same things. How’s that for an early Christmas present?

I guess it was yesterday that Marc Canter dropped the newest, shiniest version of the Structured Blogging initiative. For anyone that’s not aware, Structured Blogging is essentially an effort to make blog data (reviews, events, etc.) more machine-readable, and, presumably, more human-readable as well. The approach is to deliver a customized posting experience on the server side and microformat-enabled output on the display side. OK. Fine. I’ve commented on this already.

Reactions have varied. There was great praise for this from a number of different parties (naturally, many serve to benefit from this). Of course, though, there were many rejections and questions as well. These were far more interesting, IMHO.

On the one hand, Stowe raises a question about the psychology of the blogger, recognizing that part of the treasure of blogging is that it is indeed “Messy, Messy, Messy”:

But I don’t buy it, as I said in this recent post (see Microformats v Structured Blogging: A Small War With Big Consequences ). My bet is that Structured Blogging will fail, not because people wouldn’t like some of the consequences — such as an easy way to compare blog posts about concrete things like record reviews, and so on — but because of the inherent, and wonderful messiness of the world of blogging.

Because blog posts don’t have to conform to any structural standards, they can be used to do anything: nothing is out of bounds, because we haven’t created the boundaries. The messiness of the world we are living in is one of the reasons that it is such a rich and rewarding experience.

Source: GetReal, “Structured Blogging versus Messy, Messy, Messy”

I largely agree with Stowe. Of course, I know Stowe really well. He’s definitely more of a hacker type than I am. I tend to prefer the strucutre, often wishing I had better templates for my blogging needs. I think there’s room for the structured approach, especially if I value the results of having my data ready in this format and prepped to be sent out into the ether and discovered by people in far off lands (ok maybe not).

However, the much more interesting gripe that I have followed relating to this announcement (and it’s not a new gripe, in fact it’s been given new attention since the whole Web 2 Dot Oh No thing started) is that the consumers want their paycheck, heck they deserve it. This line of reasoning rightly stems from the simple fact that, although we are the consumers, we are more so the publishers in this new arrangement. The value of structured blogging is seemingly unfairly weighted in the direction of those with the means and intentions of aggregating that data together to create a collection that has value in excess of the individual nuggets.

Pete commented on this:

But, like Greg Yardley, I want to know “Where the money is?” If pubsub or other Broadband Mechanic’s customers like GoingOn are going to be making cash (somehow) by aggregating my content, I want a piece of it.

And I don’t think that’s paranoid, Biatch. That’s called getting a paycheck for the value you bring to the table. I think the companies behind this are certainly aware of what’s in it for them, if they can get a bunch of bloggers to start adding structure to posts. But, sales training always taught me to start with the value to the customer (and the distributor). In this case, someone like Myspace, Typepad or Blogger would be the distributor and the rest of us lowly users are the customer. How do they and we benefit?

Source: pc4media, “Structured Blogging is Finally Here. Who will Benefit?”

And just what did Greg Yardley say, well, it’s a gem:

“Profiting off user-generated content is Web 2.0 colonialism.”* … Which is what irks me. Structured user-generated content, especially aggregated reviews, is very valuable. Case in point - the del.icio.us purchase. Since del.icio.us’ functionality is easily replicable, the deal was all about the value of user-generated content. You’d think with content being worth so much, the Structured Blogging initiative would contain a way for the content providers to indicate, in a machine-readable fashion, just how they would like to be reimbursed for the commercial use of the content they’re providing. Not so - at least not anywhere I can see.

Source: yardley.ca, “Structured blogging as Web 2.0 colonialism”

So where does this leave us? Well, we know three things. First, we’re doing all the work. Second, we stand to be leveraged to the hilt. Third, our payment is soft (traffic, recognition, warm-and-fuzzy feelings, Google-derivatives). What we don’t know is 1) how much we really deserve from the aggregator (if anything) and 2) how we should receive that payment. I affectionately refer to this as the Pul-and-Pay Dilemma.

Some of the vendors will claim that they actually don’t do anything with your content except expand the audience and match it to the right people. Fair enough. Of course, they derive value from having large databases and the ability to access that data in ways that we don’t necessarily see. Still, the exchange seems pretty even, until someone makes a lot of money. We only worry about these things when they are compared or when they offend. For example, we notice the joy of using a tool like delicious. Delicious gets bought - it was because of us right? Now, some porn site comes along and starts aggregating our content as well. Suddenly, we’re not warm and fuzzy, we’re madder than hell. Why? We’re offended. We’re pissed when Flickr gets bought for tens of millions, not because they don’t “deserve it” - it’s because there’s a number for us to appreciate. Or do we?

The thing that sticks in my head more than anything, are all the exceptions to this rule. Let’s think about TV. NBC spent $10M to film an episode of Friends. They sold $30M in advertising during that show. That’s something like $20M in profit. That value exists ONLY because we’re watching the damned show. Where’s my check? How come I never asked for one then?

Here’s another example. Google’s been indexing the living heck out of everything and anything that we do. They made literally billions (via Adwords) off our work. It took them years before they gave us a way to get some back (AdSense). Were we complaining then? Were we excluding them from indexing our site because we weren’t compensated? I wasn’t. Were you?

Update: Thanks for Pete for forcing me to end this properly:

The first point is that we are indeed entitled, seemingly, to some portion of that profit. In the case of of Friends, I think the audience is the a critical part of the show, beyond simply the actors and production value. I was trying to say that we never got paid for watching.

The second point is that I wonder just how many people are thinking about this, i.e. how many will want more beyond the simple soft exchange (the entertainment value, knowledge, recognition, exposure). My reason for point out the examples was to show that we’ve seemingly not been too concerned since the reward seemed like enough.

The real challenge, now, is like negotiating partnership agreements. They always tend to suck and someone feels a little cheated when it’s done. There are ways to create systems to figure out the value. For example, Squidoo’s Lens Rank is an interesting concept and applies the principle well. Of course, Squidoo has quite humble intentions as well - is that true for most sites? The investment is significant to build out an infrastructure to actually reward those that are generating revenue. And there’s a lot of metrics and data points that need to be involved in that process.

Parallel to those developments, of course, has to be a similar development path that allows for better creating a Distributed Creative Bureau for the web that allows me to “own” the things I make in a more substantial manner and that can indeed establish a toll-system of sorts by which these aggregators become resellers of your information, agents if you will, and that makes it quick, simple, and precise the methods by which pricing is attributed and collected.

Are we more connected to this now simply because we’re directly authoring it? What about the whole Attention Trust thing? In theory, because I continue to breathe I am creating more and more value. I read just today Steve Gillmor’s post “Now that we’ve got your attention”. He says I’m paying with my Attention. The truth? I’ve always been paying with my attention. It’s only cuz we’ve got a fancy new sticker (it used to be called satisfaction, loyalty, value), that suddenly the whole world looks different. For me, the fight is KEEPING someone’s attention, not just getting it.

OK enough ranting :)

Stowe raises an interesting discussion today regarding the new Technorati Kitcken, or as Michael Arrington refers to it, “where Technorati is putting it’s not-fully-baked beta products”.

Imagine the opportunity: Technorati has the world’s largest tagspace, and all of a sudden all those hot tags — that we have lovingly created for them — now become communities where people come to exchange views and learn. I predict that T’rati will start bringing more social tools into the mix: why not let people comment directly in the tagspace, for example?

Source: GetReal, “Technorati Explore: The Tagspace As The Future of Media”

It’s an intriguing question when you think about it - and really quite obvious. More than a year ago, I was working with the Pokkari crew, makers of blip.tv, and we approached this very same problem with the Relevanta aggregator. Relevanta was a great system that aggregated posts from a growing collection of blog entries, added in a reputation engine, and centralized a community around an area of focus. It was certainly “new” back then, but it seems like it’s starting to get that “new new” luster once again.

I’ve been spending a lot of time working with tagging and its relationship to both navigation and community development. It’s still surprising just how much potential is not tapped and how many problems still need addressing in major way before we can leap to the next plateau. I’m still confident we’re nearing a new wave. I can hear the Yahoo!s already ;)

I’ve done more than my share of consulting with business large and small about the values, benefits, and pitfalls of blogging are. In some cases, I was brought in specifically to assist in the migration/creation process and other times I simply injected their viability since they were a natural mechanism.

Most recently, I’ve been talking, and now working, with people from the trade show/meeting and association industries. As many have noted, and I am sure I will affirm many times to come over the next few months, this is not an industry that tends to jump on the technology bandwagon.

A variety of people have recently hit on a number of the objections that I have encountered/countered and it seems like a great moment to highlight them now.

It Just Doesn’t Fit My Audience

Ironically enough, this is pretty close to the most true of them all, but loads of people that use this to reject blogging are probably wrong. When this excuse comes up, generally, they are making an informed guesstimate that 1) their audience doesn’t use “technology” a lot and 2) blogging is the safehave for teenagers and technophiles. Granted, we do have lots of those but…

In truth, all audiences, customer bases, and marketplaces are in flux. Newer, younger, more tech-savvy individuals are entering the marketplace and many many people from the previous generations are turning to it. As one person from the conference, who is now evaluating our products, explained to me, “Sure our members aren’t the most technologically advanced, but they all have grandkids and they’ve all got a computer sitting somewhere in their house.” I commended him on seeing that then, and I’m doing it again now.

Today, Dave Taylor posted an interview with Donna Tocci of Kryptonite Locks. It’s well worth the read. One of the nuggets Dave has goes like this:

Another important point. In the big picture the negative publicity that Kryptonite received in the blogosphere hasn’t adversely affected the company in the long term. Much of that is due to the savvy response of the Kryptonite team, but it’s also a mark of the limits of the influence of the blogosphere. We’re an influential bunch, but blogs haven’t completely obsoleted other forms of market communication by any means.

Source: The Intuitive Life Business Blog, “Debunking the myth of Krytonite Locks and the Blogosphere”

Dave’s right. However, managing the expectations and deliverables from the blog itself is key to measuring success or failure.

We Just Don’t Have The Staff

Well, well, well. In reality, this is a very salient point. It’s actually, what my conversations have found, what most people mean by the first excuse. When they evaluate the effectiveness, they are comparing the input to the output. Their expectations are quite high on the input side, which makes the output side seem smaller.

There are many, many misconceptions that I’ve heard. In reality, they’re closer to half truths. Here are just a few:

• You have to be a good writer (nice to have, but conversation is great regardless)
• You have to write a lot (not required, but good to be regular)
• You have to have real expertise (see Squidoo, everyone’s an expert, remember?

All that being said, it’s true that resources are indeed required. There are lots of ways to re-purpose the other collateral generated by your business into useful blog content. In some cases, simply reacting to the news you hear can be enough. In a recent podcast by FuelDog and , this is definitely identified as one of the largest cost centers when launching blogs for events. Give it a listen.

People Will Make Negative Comments About Us

And they can’t now? As the old saying goes, “Fight fire with fire.” Certainly I am not proposing that you make negative comments about them in return, but that you engage their comments in the same medium. Consumers, especially angy, dissatisfied ones, are even more empowered with a variety of outlets for voicing their frustrations (and other sentiments) with the world at large.

I’ve been fond of telling business folk that the customers that are on the edges, either the good or bad, are the ones that will always be the most vocal. I’m either super excited about the treatment I received or completely irate and need to make sure no one ever works with you again. If the service was mediocre, so will be my desire/willingness to spread word of it.

Toby Bloomberg, by way of Kevin Holland, has a great post explaining what she’s been encountering and her advice to the worried:

The #1 concern I’m hearing from organizations interested in exploring blogs to support marketing strategies is, “But what about the negative comments? How do we control people posting bad things about our brand or our company or our toilet paper?” Well…perhaps not TP but one never knows.

People. People. People. Marketing has changed. The world has changed. It changed while you were not looking. It changed when the internet and email made it easy for anyone to talk to the anyone in the world. Fifty years ago, my grandma’s front piazza (porch) was where her world congregated to kibbutz. Now even 80-year old divas are on-line and writing blogs.

[…]

Since we’re friends, I’ll let you in a little secret. Understanding that companies no longer control the message (influence yes. control no.) and that customers have more power than ever before in “helping sell your product”, you gain a huge advantage over your competition - those that are trying to swim upstream against the current. It’s an exciting, new world. Don’t be afraid to become apart of it.

Source: The Diva Marketing Blog, “5 Ways To Combat Negative Blog Comments”

There’s been some interesting discussion amongst the blogging event folks regarding the notion of “user-generated advertising”. It started last week when Brian Dear (of eventful.com) mentioned that BusinessWeek had picked up a phrase that he was loosely using (user-generated advertisers).

Brian goes on to define it define it as such:

The idea behind user-generated advertisers is this: everyone gets the power of user-generated content, but why stop at content? Why not help members of a local community to find those elusive local merchant advertisers every web company in the universe is seeking right now? The Holy Grail of advertising on the web is the local merchant — the local merchant who spends lots of money on coupons, classifieds, radio, tv, print — all the old 20th century solutions — everything but ads on the Net. And this just Won’t Do.

So enlist the public in finding these merchants, signing them up, helping them be successful. Give them a finder’s fee commission, and help usher in the great new age of ads on the web: from the local car dealer, pizza parlor, hair salon, hardware store, department store, grocery store, you name it. User-generated advertisers: the wave of the future.

Source: BrianStorms, “User-Generated Advertisers”

So, going on that, it’s in the arena of something like AdWords for local search - except by the people. Well, not exactly. I’ve done more than my share of selling in my time. I’ll tell you that, considering I can’t get the average user to fill in a simple form completely, without errors, and that the majority of people I know have a hard time talking to strangers and almost everyone I know has a problem asking for money (even when it’s owed them), that this simply won’t work.

Pete Caputa made a direct, but funny comment: “I think its called sponsorship. And generally, anyone that amasses a crowd of people can sell it. And if you have a history of being able to gather a crowd, sponsors solicit you.” More importantly, Pete goes on to discuss this a bit further:

From my experience, proactively selling sponsorship is difficult. It requires a dedicated salesperson. It is equivalent to selling offline advertising because it is difficult to measure effectiveness. We actually hired someone to sell sponsorship for about six months. We broke even and parted amicably. Ironically, now a lot of local people contact us about sponsorsing local events. Luckily, I don’t have to plan them. And passing on a sponsor to a customer usually covers the cost of our services. So, I definitely see business opportunity in aggregating events, understanding which events are attracting what audiences, and facilitating sponsorship sales. But, calling it “user generated” is a stretch.

Source: pc4media, “How To Monetize Participative [Amateur] Conferences”

I know Pete’s worked hard at selling this stuff. If you trust anyone’s opinion on the matter, it should be his.

Another buddy, Chris Heurer (of BrainJams), chimes in from a different angle, the organizer’s:

When user generated content, meets user generated conferences, meets user generated advertising, wonderful things can happen… and that is one of the keys to the success of BrainJams.

Source: Chris’ Insytes, “The Rise of Amateur Conferences”

I have a lot more to say about Chris’ other comments in that post, but I’ll be saving those for another day. For now, I’ll summarize my understanding as such. Though we’re getting increasing involvement from the attendee in the marketing and promotion, and occassionally investment, in events, there’s still a fine line between a supporter (donates) and an advertiser (buys). The traditional event business (and world) has established meanings for these terms and muddying the waters with the user-generated prefix, though fun, interesting, and certainly TwoDotOhNo-compliant, can certainly lead to all sorts of confusion.

P.S. I don’t think Brian was necessarily trying to coin a new phrase either

P.S.S. Thanks to Chris and Pete for their props and support.