Many of us are ready to recognize social media as a standard subset of our B2B and B2C communications channels. Even the slow moving Fortune 500 is adopting public-facing blogs, according to SNCR. So it’s time to stop thinking about analyst-written blogs as a novelty and start thinking about them as part of standard analyst business practice. One of the … Read More
NCF2009: Where to find the social media influencers
NewComm Forum 2009 is just around the corner. I agree with Tom Foremski that this is not only the largest gathering of social media experts in the US, it is also a favorite of most of us who have attended over the years. I recommend it to anyone serious about meeting, hearing, influencing or simply hanging out with the A-listers … Read More
Will social media change the way we measure influence?
Scott Brinker blogged about propinquity and Twitter last week. I’d never heard the word propinquity before. However, propinquity seems to be a label for a familiar concept — the notion that physical promixity promotes relationships. My parents harped about that while I was a teen. Happily, Scott takes a different tack. He suggests that social media applications such as Twitter … Read More
Does influence equal online popularity?
Today I saw 2 more threads in the ongoing debate over whether social media popularity is a good way to measure influence. First, my colleague Duncan Brown writes that Google is launching an AdWords-style SEM program across big social networks. As an online publisher, I can see how this Google program makes perfect sense for media buyers. It will play … Read More
Social media driving competition for purchase influence
Tom Smith’s guest post at Mashable makes the point that we now trust the opinions of strangers as much as we trust our close friends, thanks to social media. He’s highlighting findings from the Universal McCann study, “When did we start trusting strangers”. Don’t let yourself get lulled into thinking this phenomenon is taking place only in consumer markets. Social … Read More
Survey: Tech decision-makers split on social media
There’s quite a debate raging over whether IT decision-makers are influenced by blogs and other forms of social media. No matter which side you take in this debate, you’ll find good news and bad news in the latest installment of the “IT Social Media Index.” The IT Social Media Index is becoming a twice-yearly survey conducted by ITtoolbox (now part … Read More
The rough cut: what is an analyst blog?
What is a blog? How would you define an industry analyst blog? What separates blogs from the other online destinations and channels published by the ICT analyst community? Is a blog still a blog without an RSS feed? comments? Is an analyst blog tied to his or her expertise? Yesterday, I asked ten or so analysts and consultants in the … Read More
Zen and the art of blog directory maintenance
The Tekrati directory of analyst blogs is easier to use, offers more information and is better integrated with its sister directories, on analysts and analyst firms. What’s more, we migrated the OPML to the latest rev and did an extensive housecleaning on the listings. Richard handled the programming effortlessly, as always. I, on the other hand, am still wrestling with … Read More
What’s My Line: Analyst, Blogger, or Analyst Blogger?
Richard Stiennon raises an interesting point in his Threat Chaos post, Finding Cool Companies: should analysts who blog at online media networks — in this case, ZDNet — be given media passes to competitor’s events — in this case, Gartner Symposium? I don’t think so, but it does raise an amusing question of ethics. Stiennon, a former Gartner analyst, recently … Read More
Free Hosted Blogs for PR Practioners
Auburn University’s Robert French (no relation), with the support of James Farmer, has launched PRblogs.org to bring PR professionals, educators and students together within a blogging community. PR practioners, educators and students can sign up for a free, ad-free, fully hosted blog of their own. For PR pro’s, this is a low risk, no (monetary) cost way to begin experimenting … Read More