Conversational Media Marketing

Last week I received an email from Practical Ecommerce publisher Kerry Murdock regarding some changes he was making to the magazine, specfically as it pertained to the way in which it would be published going forward. For me, the news came as a mixed bag of good and bad.

The good news is that PE now has a dynamic, newly redesigned and developed Web site. It's built to function specifically as an online magazine and contains a number of social networking elements (shared user profiles, comments, ratings, reviews, etc).

The bad news (for me at least) is that the July/August edition will be the last one published in print form.

Kerry was willing to sit for an interview, which is available as a podcast. (It's about 29 minutes long, but is well worth the investment of time. Plus, it's tagged so you can pick and choose the sections you'd like to listen to.)

We're officially announcing the relaunch of the International Blogging and New Media Association today. This has been long in coming and I'm elated to see the day finally arrive.

Check out the press release and the blog post. If you feel so inclined, please help us spread the message.

One more thing...

I know there may be talk about how the executive board is comprised only of men, and middle-aged white men at that. And I understand. I can promise you the Advisory Council, which we will announce next week, is far from that. It's a diverse group in many respects as you will see.

Again, help us spread the word, the IBNMA is back Jack!

I pleased to announce that my company, Bizzuka, has agreed to sponsor the New Marketing Summit to be held in Boston in October.

But, that's not the point of this post.

The point is how the company hosting the conference, Crosstech Media, found out about Bizzuka in the first place. After all, we're a small, up to now regionally-focused content management software provider dedicated to serving small business (though we do have a few enterprise clients).

While I've not come out and directly asked the question, it's my belief that it came as a result of interaction with others in the social media marketing community, including Crosstech's VP of Strategy and Technology, Chris Brogan.

If that's the case, it speaks to one of the benefits social networking provides.

My friend and WOM guru Andy Sernovitz is hosting a small-group word of mouth marketing seminar. Usually he only does private training for companies at a very large price, so this is a rare chance for 50 people to get the best introduction to word of mouth that there is.

If you'd like to attend, Andy is offering CMM readers a $250 discount. Use code "weloveconversationalmedia" when you register. (You do "love" CMM don't you?)

This is a very practical, hands-on course. At this one day seminar you will:

• Master the five steps of word of mouth marketing
• Construct an action plan that your company can start using the very next day
• Get the same training that big corporations (Microsoft, TiVo, eBay) have received -- for a fraction of what they paid
• Know how to translate word of mouth marketing into real ROI
• Participate in an active, intense day of practical brainstorming (not boring theory)
• Learn from Andy Sernovitz, the guy who literally wrote the book on word of mouth marketing

Andy promises you will learn a repeatable, proven marketing framework that is easy to execute, affordable, and provides measurable results within 60 days.

More information: http://events.gaspedal.com

Chicago: July 30 and September 4

Pass it on: http://events.gaspedal.com/banners

Talk about good timing. If you needed a good excuse not to use Twitter on July 4, this is it. Announced just yesterday is a new microblogging service called identi.ca. It's a lot like Twitter, only better.

How so? It's open source.

The software is available for download. In other words, instead of relying on one set of servers as with Twitter, the system is distributed among its users, or can be at least. Read/Write Web explains it this way...

"I put a customized version of the foundation software (called Laconi.ca) on my server, you put one to your liking on yours, we both get friends on our local copy and any other versions around the web - and everyone can communicate with each other just like we were using the same service from the same provider."

Technology pundit Duncan Riley says the biggest breakthrough is "support for the new OpenMicroBlogging standard, which means that in theory, anyone could host the script and each service would talk to each other, creating a distributed, decentralized Twitter."

Does this guarantee reliability and scalability? Not necessarily, but, as Brian Solis suggests, it's "incredibly promising."

Firefox is going for a Guinness World Record for the most downloads of their upcoming Firefox 3 browser within a 24 hour period, a campaign they're calling Download Day 2008.

While I'm not sure exactly when that is (there doesn't seem to be a date certain listed on the site; correct me if I'm wrong), I think the idea qualifies as great word of mouth marketing for a number of reasons.

Data portability... MySpace announced Thursday they're doing it... Facebook and Google made similar announcements on Friday.

The issue has been gaining ground for a number of months, especially since the unintended (It was unintended wasn't it?) Scoble Facebook/Plaxo mishap shed more intense light on the need for netizens to be able to control, move and share their data across a network of trusted sites.  Now, it appears another step is being taken in the direction of a more Pangaea-like web.

A data portability or semantic web expert I'm not, but anything that's going to make the job of registering for yet another social network easier suits me just fine. And, Google's announcement comes with an added bonus, especially where small business is concerned.

UPDATE: Jeremiah is back from vacation, though wading in slowly. He's still looking back over his shoulder and wondering if the vacation wasn't long enough. No vacation to Hawaii could be long enough!

Hugh McLeod, as you probably know, following a "thank you...we'll miss you" which many of us signed.

Scoble is back from Israel and will have much to say I'm sure. Be sure and read the first post he wrote upon his return. It's not what you'd expect and is very touching.

By now everyone knows clever cartoonist Hugh McLeod has become a hermit, moving to the remote, little town of Alpine, Texas and, even worse, deleting his Twitter account. In one of his final Tweets, Hugh said, "Sorry, Gang, I just don't think I can do the 'Blogosphere' thing any more. Gonna do something else. Already doing it, actually."

Internet pioneer Doc Searls hints that he's giving up blogging.

Robert Scoble is telling everyone to turn off the Internet.

Even Jeremiah Owyang is disconnecting for a few days after "being on the grid for over 900 days." (That's got to be some kind of record.)

One of the oldest and least talked about social networks, BlackPlanet, just made news.

BlackPlanet's parent company, CommunityConnect, has been purchased by Radio One, an "urban market" radio network for the grand total of $38 million,  a paltry sum by comparison these days.

The network which, as the name implies, targets the African-American community, is the 5th most trafficked social network, according to Hitwise.

Back to the statement I made earlier - "least talked about" - there doesn't appear to be much talk about  at all, at least not in the mainstream. Perhaps it's due to the fact that, while African-American consumers tend to use the Web for business, they favor socializing offline.

Of course, I'm looking from the outside in. I'd love to hear what socially-networked African-Americans have to say. Feel free to chime in.

An article published in the NY Times Sunday suggests that blogging may be bad for your health. In fact, it cites the deaths of two well-known technology bloggers, Mark Orchant, who passed away at age 50, and Russell Shaw, who died just a few weeks ago at age 60. The inference is blogging contributed to their deaths.

The article goes on to quote TechCrunch chief Mike Arrington who testifies that blogging has had a deleterious effect on his health.

Arrington has "gained 30 pounds in the last three years, developed a severe sleeping disorder and turned his home into an office for him and four employees," states the article. “At some point, I’ll have a nervous breakdown and be admitted to the hospital, or something else will happen...this is not sustainable,” Arrington said.

There's major blog brands like TechCrunch, Read/Write Web, Gawker Media, b5media, Marketing Pilgrim and, then, there's the rest of us.