Use Web 2.0 to Keep Up With-- and Join--the conversation

Daniel X. O’Neil(773) 960-6045

danielx@gmail.com www.weblogconsultant.com

Hello.

• Daniel X. O’Neil• 11 years as an internet

strategist-- six years working directly with Web 2.0 tools

• Currently the People Person at EveryBlock, a new media Web site that pulls together local news and public information

Block Page for the Drake

Let’s Talk About You.

• Who you are• Where you work• What you do there• What you expect out

of our time together• Let’s customize this

time best we can

How to Evaluate Emerging Technologies

• Separate the technology from the culture

• Separate the current utility from the generic utility

• Maxim: any piece of software with pop culture popularity has enterprise utility

• That’s what we’re going to do today– show the utility of popular application in the enterprise

Technologies

• Social Networking Platforms: Facebook, Pownce, LinkedIn,

• Publishing Tools: Yahoo 360, WordPress, Movable Type, TypePad

• Meme sites: Technorati, Digg, various others in particular industries

Technologies

• Media sharing and storage sites

• Photos: Flickr• Video: YouTube/ Google

Video• WordPress and Pownce

for long-term storage of large files

• DropSend or SendFile for transfer of files to media

Culture

• Collaboration: comments, trackbacks, frequent updates/ edits

• Openness: transparency in approach (development, features, etc.)

• Crowdsourcing: Wikipedia is the great example, but there are many others (Yahoo! Teachers and Answers, for instance)

The Wikipedia IP Address Issue

• Logging changes to Wikipedia pages related to corporations and brands

• Tracking them to IP addresses within the corporations that were the subject of the articles

• The implication-- practically unchallenged in the meme cycle-- was that corporations had no right to a voice

What the Culture Means to PR Professionals

• You have a right to speech• Limiting social networking tools to

individuals & excluding corporations makes no sense

• Pure First Amendment issues, similar to the caselaw on political contributions

• Exert your rights• But do it right

So When You Comment

• Don’t be tricky• Be an individual, not a company (user

names based on your name, first person singular and plural)

• Stay focused on the specific text that you are commenting on-- not people, history, or the ether

• But do it

Jarvis’ “New News Process”

TextText

Essentials for the Conversation

• There are step-by-steps here, but you’ll have to figure some things out

• Use the “Help” button• If you get stuck, Google the problem–

chances are someone else has had the same issue

• The ability to copy/paste pieces of code directly into your intranet is key to most of these ideas

The Platform for a PR Professional

• Use an RSS reader to keep up with what people are saying about your company and your industry

• Use relatively simple mashup tools to create custom competitive intelligence

• Use media sharing sites for finding, publishing, and sharing photos and video relating to your company

RSS Reader

• This is one of the basics that every communicator should have– a full RSS reader

• Google Reader is the best– easy to subscribe, easy to share, great screen shortcuts

• Others: Bloglines, My Yahoo, NewsGator

Google Reader

Google Reader for Subscribing to News

• Electronic clipping service

• Subscribe to any news source that has an RSS feed

• Use the Firefox or IE 7 browsers for auto-detection of RSS feeds

• Firefox is best– faster, renders pages better, spellcheck

Google Reader for Corporate News Clippings & Content

Fodder• Reading lists– keep up on key industry

publications and newspapers• Do searches in your key executive staff,

company name, and industry keywords in Google News

• Every search has an RSS feed• Don’t forget the blog search, too• Once you’ve got the feed, you can just

click the orange RSS button or copy/paste the URL into the “Add Subscription” section in Google Reader on the left

OPML to Export Reading List

• Once you build a good reading list, you can share it with everyone in your company

• Settings > Import/ Export > Export Your Subscriptions as an OPML File

• Then upload it to an intranet or other shared Web resource

• Anyone can download it and import it into their feed reader

Custom Competitive Intelligence

• Use Google and Yahoo! news & blog search RSS feeds along with Yahoo! Pipes and FeedBurner to create custom competitive intelligence

• Once you’ve got an RSS feed, you can trim it then publish it to your intranet

Custom Competitive Intelligence: Convenience

Stores

Capture the RSS Feed

Get an account at Feedburner

Burn the new feed (step-by-step in Feedburner)

Then click “Buzzboost” under the “Publicize” tab and

complete the form

The result? A script. Publish it to your intranet in a block that

takes HTML<script

src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/ConvenienceStores-GoogleNews?format=sigpro" type="text/javascript" ></script><noscript><p>Subscribe to RSS headline updates from: <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/ConvenienceStores-GoogleNews"></a><br/>Powered by FeedBurner</p> </noscript>

Here’s the raw HTML in a webpage

Last Step: Customize the feed with Yahoo! Pipes

http://feeds.feedburner.com/ConvenienceStores-GoogleNews

Convenience Store Raw Feed

Convenience Store Feed w/o the phrase “7-eleven”

Now it is

Custom Competitive Intelligence:

Upshots• Somewhat complicated, but powerful

once you get it• Be sure not to “publish” your feed–

then only you know its URL• Be sure to only use this tactic on feeds

that you are OK to make public• The feeds may be indexed by search

engines• If you’re afraid of the competitive

intelligence searches becoming public, pick your content by hand using RSS feeds as in our first example

Flickr

• Use Flickr for finding, publishing, and sharing photos relating to your company

• Flickr has 25,017 photos of “Pepsi”

Flickr for Creative Commons Photos Available for use on

your Intranet• Creative Commons is a

set of intellectual property standards based on existing copyright law

• Flickr supports search for Creative Commons images in their Advanced Search

666 “Pepsi” photos on Flickr licensed under Creative

Commons

Flickr for storing hi-res images

• Great for sharing with art departments

• Password-protected, but stored on the internet– so no trade secrets or pre-product launches

• Supports separate privacy settings for each photo

Extending Flickr

• Supports printing• Third-party

applications• Integration with

blogging software• Publish to Flickr by

email• Publish to blog by

email• Publish by cellphone

camera

Google Video

• Use Google Video to stream instructional videos and other corporate video assets

• Google allows for the streaming of private, non-indexed videos inside your intranet

• But again, only store non-critical items there– you never know

• Great for historical company videos or non-secret trade or instructional videos

“Uploaded videos” screen

Advantages of Google Video

• Private• No size limits– blows past all of the

“server space” issues of the past• Personal index of your videos– great

for historical asset management• Streaming onto your intranet is easy

Google video: Just copy/ paste HTML

Don’t ForgetPlain-Old SearchPlain-Old Search

• Yahoo! Toolbar to search within a Web site

• Archive.org to see what a site looked like years ago

• Google cache if you want to recreate a page that is now missing

Some More Complex Ideas

• Use Live.com to create custom point-to-point maps

• Deploy WordPress to for feature-rich, extensible content management system

• Use social networking sites such as Facebook as an extension of your corporate conversation

• Use Zocalo to create prediction markets and tap hidden knowledge

Live.com for custom maps

• Use Live.com to create custom point-to-point maps

• Very useful for maps to company picnic, key suppliers, ad-hoc route maps

• Published to the internet and accessible with the right URL

Live.com maps– add custom “pushpins”

• Allows you to add “pushpins” (see right-hand side of screen after you log in)

• Each pushpin can be precisely placed and have detailed descriptions, URLs, images, etc.

Live.com– see the map here

• http://local.live.com/?v=2&cid=5973FA202DA62927!138&encType=1

• Permanent URL for sharing

• Not indexed by search engines

Maps for Story Telling

WordPress: content management

• Deploy WordPress to for feature-rich, extensible content management system

• “Blog” software that runs on your intranet, not on an outside server

• Highly extensible (can add outside functionality)

• Can be used as content management (more sophisticated databased relationships among content types)

• Has the simplicity and features of a blog

WordPress: Powerful Features

WordPress: Extensible

Social Networking Sites

• Use social networking sites such as Facebook as an extension of your corporate conversation

• Not recommended for every corporation (especially the larger ones)

• But can be highly effective to have informal, deeper relationships with employees

• Be where they are, gather more knowledge

Zocalo Prediction Markets• Use Zocalo to create

prediction markets and tap hidden knowledge

• Perhaps the most “out-there” suggestion on the list, and most difficult to execute

• But very rewarding for large organizations that seeks to get the low-down and dive deep into the collective mind of the workforce

• Great take on prediction market’s utility in the enterprise:

• http://wiki.commerce.net/wiki/ZMarket

Zocalo Prediction Markets

• Need an experienced IT person to implement this

• Advantage: completely internal• Web-based source:

www.inklingmarkets.com

Thank You

• Call me anytime (773) 960-6045• danielx@gmail.com • Check out EveryBlock• Questions?