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Google Decides to Kill Privacy

January 26, 2012 by gfsnell3 0 Comments

Google's new privacy policy allows the company to peek through bedroom windows.

Remember when Google adopted “Don’t Be Evil” as its unofficial motto?  You’ll find that little ditty at a yard sale next to a Bay City Rollers album and a skinny leather tie decorated like a piano.

Because this week Google announced it was drastically changing its privacy policy and the side of sharing – and the side of profitability.  The Google white hats have been replaced by black ones.

Google made the announcement on its blog under the rather understated headline: “Updating Our Privacy Policy and Terms of Service.”  The accompanying video also officially places Google into the “creepy” company category.

Basically as of March 1 Google is going to track users everywhere as it consolidates all of its services: Gmail, Google+, Android phones, search, etc. into one user profile.  As Gizmodo notes:

“If you are signed into your Google Account to use any service at all, the company can use that information on other services as well… What this means for you is that data from the things you search for, the emails you send, the places you look up on Google Maps, the videos you watch in YouTube, the discussions you have on Google+ will all be collected in one place.”

And, of course, it will be saved and stored forever.  The data will be added to your personal algorithm to provide you with personalized search results and customized advertising.  Google says that it will even be able to remind you if you’re late for an appointment based on your current location, your calendar entry, and current traffic conditions.

Google, however, mentioned nothing about offering you a ride to said meeting.

While this type of invasion of privacy isn’t new, Facebook and other companies already do much of this, the difference is that Google once promised not to do things like this.  Google has become a successful billion dollar company because people trust them.  That may not be the case anymore.

The Washington Post yesterday conducted an informal poll on Google’s privacy changes.  More than 13,000 people participated and 66 percent vowed they would be closing their accounts with the company.  It remains to be seen if people actually have the energy to close out all of these services.

What about you?  Are you concerned about privacy?  Will you be closing your Google accounts?

Links:

Google blog post on privacy policy change

Gizmodo post “Google’s Broken Promise”

Washington Post “How to Close Your Google Account”

The Reality of Online Privacy: You Have None

Google CEO Thinks Privacy is Evil

Web 2.0, Technology, Social Media, Culture
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Getting Rational on SOPA

January 25, 2012 by gfsnell3 0 Comments

Rally the stormtroopers!

The debate on the Stop Online Piracy Act (known as SOPA) has jumped the shark.  SOPA and its companion bill Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) were both shelved recently by Congress and the Senate after a frenzied protest by dozens of websites and Internet companies including Google, Wikipedia and Facebook.

The goal of the bills was to protect IP  and copyright owners and penalize those who stole protected content.  No doubt the bills were flawed.  It’s rare to find a perfect piece of legislation.  But the aggressive way in which opponents painted supporters as advocates of censorship and tyranny took hyperbole to the extreme.

Here’s a sampling:

“SOPA legislates censorship (yes censorship – like in North Korea)…” – from David Meerman Scott, Web Ink Now

“If the government decides any part of [a site you're using] infringes on copyright and proves it in court?  Poof.  Your digital life is gone, and you can’t get in back.” – from Brian Barrett, Gizmodo

“There’s a war brewing against the Internet…” – from Erick Schonfeld, TechCrunch

I think you get the picture.  Opponents of the legislation fanned fears that SOPA was going to end the web as we know it and usher in the online era of North Korean like tyranny.

Ridiculous, of course.

Yet there is an idea out there that “information wants to be free” (like information is a caged parakeet pining to escape to sunny skies) and somehow this meme has been translated into “content created by others should be mine for free.”  This is completely and utterly false.  Content is not gossip.

It is movies, TV shows, photographs, books, games, music and journalism.  And the people and companies who create this wonderful content deserve to be paid for creating it.  It has real tangible value.  Just because we have developed a digital platform (the Internet) that allows for the easy transfer of information doesn’t mean that information has a desire to be free.  Or that it should be free.

If I write a song and want to sell it then that is my right.  It is not the right of some dude to buy it once and then distribute it for free to hundreds of his friends and family.  If I’m a movie studio who puts up millions of dollars to make a motion picture then it is my right to get paid by the people who want to view it.

That isn’t a crime.  That isn’t tyranny.  And, trust me, North Korea doesn’t work that way.

We have created an upside down world where the platforms are the moneymakers and the content creators are starting to lose their shirts.  Google, Yahoo and Facebook make their money by selling advertising around other people’s content – even when that content has been illegally obtained.  The wide open web that is now in existence is great for Google, but not so great for Universal Studios.

And hiding behind pithy maxims like “information wants to be free” or painting content creators as the equivalent of jack-booted dictators isn’t helpful, but, as it turns out, is pretty darn effective.

No one can deny that there is a huge problem with intellectual property theft on the web – and it isn’t just from off-shore piracy sites.  It’s all of us who now expect everything from hard-hitting journalism to TV shows to be free on the web.  It’s the business model of many Internet companies.

As Danny Goldberg noted in The Nation:

“But before we celebrate this “populist” victory, it’s worth remembering that the defeat of SOPA and PIPA was also a victory for the enormously powerful tech industry, which almost always beats the far smaller creative businesses in legislative disputes. (Google alone generated more than $37 billion in 2011, more than double the revenue of all record companies, major and indie combined.)”

I’m all for the easy delivery and access of information and content, but I’m also a fan of keeping content creators in business.  Because I happen to like content.  And, believe it or not, piracy kills content.

Links:

Web Ink Now “Stop the SOPA Silliness”

Gizmodo “What Is SOPA?”

TechCrunch “The Parable Of The Wheel”

Danny Goldberg “Hysterical over SOPA for all the wrong reasons”

Web 2.0, Social Media, Content Creation, Culture
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Tackling the Woes of Social Measurement

January 20, 2012 by gfsnell3 3 Comments

D-FENCE!!

The biggest woe in social media is measurement.  No one has figured it out.  There are no standards.  There are hundreds of measurement tools.  There are all kinds of metrics and statistics that can be measured.

The great thing about social media is that you can measure everything, but the worst part of social media is that you can measure everything.

Unfortunately, measuring everything doesn’t help.  It’s measuring the right thing that matters.  Otherwise, you’re stuck with results that are inaccurate or misleading.  Let me give you an example of what happens when you measure the wrong thing.

Let’s talk football. Because the NFL is prime example of how when you measure the wrong thing you can get misleading information.

Case in point: How the NFL measures team defenses.  NFL defenses are ranked by the number of yards they give up.  The fewer yards against them the higher they rank.

This year the top five defenses ranked by yards were:

  • Pittsburgh Steelers
  • Houston Texans
  • Baltimore Ravens
  • San Fransisco 49ers
  • New York Jets

The New England Patriots rank 31 out of 32 teams in this measurement system.  The Cleveland Browns are 29.

However, NFL games aren’t decided by yards.  They are decided by points.

In fact, yards is an irrelevant statistic in the outcome of a NFL game.  If two NFL teams play and one of them gains 1,000 yards and scores 14 points and the other gains 100 yards and scores 21 points, the team with the most points wins.

Yardage against might be an indicator of a good NFL defense, but it that’s all it is.  A more accurate way of measuring a defense is by how many points they give up.  The best defenses give up fewer points.  If we ranked NFL defenses this way some of the same teams are listed, but the list of best defenses is different:

  • Pittsburgh Steelers
  • San Francisco 49ers
  • Baltimore Ravens
  • Houston Texans
  • Cleveland Browns

As you can see the lowly Browns once ranked 29 now jump to number five.  And the New York Jets fall off the list to 20th place.  And the Patriots move up to 15th (which helps explains why they went 13-3 in the regular season).

Measurement is important, but only if you measure the right thing.

When you measure the wrong thing you get results, but it might not be results that are going to accurately help you reach your business goals.

Links:

ESPN Top NFL Defenses

Photo courtesy of Flickr (by ktylerconk)

Social Media, Social Media Consulting
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What the Heck is SOPA?

January 18, 2012 by gfsnell3 0 Comments

Google's protest against SOPA.

If you’re online today – or on Twitter or Facebook – you’ve likely seen the acronym SOPA.  You may have also noticed that several website including Google, Wikipedia and Yahoo have altered their sites to protest SOPA.  Check out the blacked out Google logo above.

What’s going on?

SOPA stands for the Stop Online Privacy Act (there is a related bill to it called the PROTECT IP Act known as PIPA).  SOPA is a bill pending before Congress that would expand the authority of the U.S. government to fight copyright infringements online.

Basically, the proposed law would allow the U.S. government and copyright owners to seek court orders against websites that infringe copyright laws by putting some severe consequences to copyright violators.  This would include:

  • Banning search engines from directing U.S. citizens to sites that violate copyrights
  • Making it illegal for U.S. companies to advertise on violating sites
  • Forbidding online payment services like PayPal from making payments to those sites
  • Forcing Internet service providers to block violating sites

Proponents such as the Motion Pictures Association of America,, U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Recording Industry Association of America argue that SOPA is necessary to crack down on an epidemic of online piracy – especially overseas.

This is a quote from U.S. Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Virginia), a SOPA supporter:

“Intellectual property is one of America’s chief job creators and competitive advantages in the global marketplace, yet American inventors, authors, and entrepreneurs have been forced to stand by and watch as their works are stolen by foreign infringers beyond the reach of current U.S. laws.  This legislation will update the laws to ensure that the economic incentives our Framers enshrined in the Constitution over 220 years ago—to encourage new writings, research, products and services— remain effective in the 21st century’s global marketplace, which will create more American jobs.”

Opponents, however, argue that the bill does little to actually protect copyrights and is a form of censorship.  Opponents include the White House, Google, Wikipedia and Human Rights Watch.  Opponents say the law is too broad and far-reaching.

This is from the Google blog:

“[SOPA] would grant new powers to law enforcement to filter the Internet and block access to tools to get around those filters. We know from experience that these powers are on the wish list of oppressive regimes throughout the world. SOPA and PIPA also eliminate due process. They provide incentives for American companies to shut down, block access to and stop servicing U.S. and foreign websites that copyright and trademark owners allege are illegal without any due process or ability of a wrongfully targeted website to seek restitution.”

Google and other opponents also argue that SOPA will hinder innovation and creativity and result in job losses.

Below are links to more details about SOPA.

What do you think?  Is SOPA dangerous?  Is it necessary to protect IP?

Links:

CNN article on SOPA

Wikipedia article on SOPA

Google’s reasons for opposing SOPA

ABC News’s story on SOPA

Bob Sullivan of MSNBC on SOPA and piracy

Web 2.0, Business
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5 Tips for a Social Media Crisis

January 17, 2012 by gfsnell3 0 Comments

Bang!

You can take this to the bank: If you are a brand then you’ll experience a social media crisis.

It’s inevitable.

Look at it this way.  No brand in existence – not even the most popular and best-loved brands in the world – has ever avoided a negative phone call, a snarky email, a compliant letter or a customer who has yelled at a sales representative.

Social media has replaced those traditional channels for complaining about companies.  Now unhappy customers write blog posts.  They tweet about bad service.  They rant about a poor product on Facebook.  They write bad reviews on Yelp.  If they feel really upset they start a petition on Change.org.

Social media is now the communications channel for complaints.  It is where communications crises will start and where they will spread.  It is where traditional media – newspapers, TV stations and magazines – will discover crises.

So what can you do when a social media crises strikes?

Here are a five pointers to consider.

  • Don’t panic.  Easier said than done, I know.  When your Facebook page feels like a dart board and you’re a trending topic on Twitter it can feel like the world is opening up beneath your feet.  It isn’t.  Social media crises are like tornadoes.  They strike fast and furious – and suddenly they are over.  Few brand crises – at least the intense public parts – last more than a few days.
  • Keep it in perspective.  The whole world isn’t against you.  It just feels that way.  But a few hundred comments on Facebook (or even a few thousand) isn’t that many when compared with Facebook as a whole.  There are more than 800 million people there after all.  And if you start to read the comments closely you’ll find more positive and neutral comments than may be apparent at first.  You’ll have your advocates.  This isn’t to diminish the crisis, but keeping the audience numbers in perspective is important.
  • Listen first.  Make sure you have the right monitoring tools in place.  Collect the data.  Discover your advocates and your bad-vocates. Use the data to help make informed decisions.
  • Avoid he said/she said. Nuance doesn’t plays poorly on social media.  A tweet can only hold 140-characters.  Trying to pick apart every minor error that your critics have leveled against you – no matter how inaccurate – will cloud your big messages.  Stick to your knitting.  Keep to the facts.  Be precise and concise.  Do not get sucked into an argument.
  • Think reputation.  It’s hard to win in the whirlwind of a social media crises.  Individuals can react fast.  They don’t have communications teams or processes to follow.  Most crises break with the brand being forced to react and respond to a complaint or a situation.  Most people believe the information they get first.  Reactive responses don’t have that advantage.  So remember – it is about your brand’s long-term reputation.  Protect it.  This means that listening, being polite and acknowledging the critics are important.  In a crisis brands get points for being responsive and professional.

Links:

The Wrath of Everyone and How to Avoid It

Business, Social Media, Social Media Consulting
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Social Media
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2012 Will be the Year of Social Catch-Up

January 3, 2012 by gfsnell3 0 Comments

Yeah, that fast.

Social media moves like the Flash.

Zip!  Bang!  Boom!

It’s fast – really fast.  Stop paying attention for a couple of days and you feel like you’ve missed an entire movement.  There’s always innovation – new technology, cool sharing tools, new ways to monitor and manage.  Heck, there are new platforms and applications seemingly dropping from the skies.

However, I’m predicting that 2012 won’t be a year that brands expand into new social platforms.

Instead, 2012 will be the year brands try to maximize existing social channels, primarily Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Google+ and location-based services like Foursquare.

Why?

Because at the end of 2011 there were still too many brands who didn’t have control over their existing social media assets.  The greatest pain points for brands in social media right now are:

  • Community Management – Handling the day-to-day interactions with consumers, partners, employees, etc.  Who is in charge of this?  What are the best practices?  Who has the final say on direct to consumer communications?  Are standards in place?  Is there any training?  What tools are being used?
  • Social Integration – Aligning marketing, communications and customer service on social channels in a consistent manner.  When the product marketing team writes an incredible blog post is it being syndicated on the Facebook page managed by communications or being tweeted out by the Twitter handled being managed by advertising?  Do they even know that the blog post (or, in fact, the blog) even exist?
  • Content Management – Having a content creation process and syndication plan that aligns with business goals.  Is there a process in place for streamlining content so that a news event has an accompanying blog post, YouTube video, photo series for Facebook and Flickr, poll on Facebook and a Twitter chat?  Is content being effectively maximized on every channel?

As my colleagues like to say when a situation falls apart rather quickly: “It’s a hot mess.”  That describes the social media strategy and tactical execution for many brands who don’t even have basics in place like social media guidelines or a social media playbook (a guide of best practices for content creators within the organization).

Now put all of these challenges into an industry moving at lightning speed and you end up with confusion, frustration and internal bickering.

Who needs that?

I’m predicting that 2012 will (or at least should) be the year that brands slow down and organize.  The year that they finally do an assessment of their social channels to figure out what they have and how it is working.  The year to put a sound strategy and structure around their social media efforts.

After all, doesn’t it make better sense to optimize existing channels before opening new ones?

Business, Content Creation, Social Media, Social Media Consulting
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Santa-Claus

Santa Hates You

December 19, 2011 by gfsnell3 2 Comments

 

As I often say: the first certainty in social media is that you’ll make a mistake.  The second certainty – especially if you’re a business or a brand – is that some know-it-all social media expert will call you out on it.

So here’s a bit of Christmas fun for us all.  Happy Holidays!

———————————-

From The Secrets of Social Media Perfection Blog:

I have the one mission in life: to help people, companies and brands market on social web.  It is my one and only passion and what I wake up every morning longing to do.  This is why I rarely look at my wife or speak to my children, but that’s another blog post.

Because of that underlining desire to help, I want to give some free advice to Santa Claus and whoever his social media agency is.

And for those who don’t think I’ve got the credentials to give this advice – think again.  I run my own social media marketing agency in my basement with actual paying clients (I’ve got the check stubs to prove it).  I’ve helped develop and execute many, many online campaigns.  I get paid quite nicely to speak on the subject at industry events like my son’s Cub Scout meetings.  I can prove that as well.

But today my advice is completely free because I’m not only a guru, but a generous guru.  By now you’ve probably heard about the huge social media snafu made by Santa Claus.

He tweeted out:

 

 

 

Of course when this tweet came across TweetDeck, I immediately called him out with my own tweet.

 

 

 

I was backed up by my posse of social media cohorts: everyone from Trish Braggin and Dave Scott-Free to Social Dude and Content Bitch. They all retweeted my original tweet and it went viral within a few hours – more than 1,000 retweets – backing me up that Santa Claus – or the morons he hires for social media consulting – was engaging in social media hate speech.  I followed up with a YouTube video rant analyzing the situation which has already generated 43,456 views.

Santa, we have a crisis.  A BIG crisis.

Yet, it took Jolly Ole Saint Nick more than 23 hours to reply to me the social media firestorm that he ignited with his own ignorant hate speech.  So social media tip one, Mr. Kris Kringle…

Social media is a conversation.  A real-time conversation.

Santa Claus finally replied on his Facebook page of all places.

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s social media tip two, Claus…

Respond to a crisis on the social channel where the crisis started.

Can you believe the arrogance of that response?  “I’m Santa Claus!”  Where does he get off thinking he’s not subject to the same rules of social media etiquette and decorum as everyone else?  What makes him think he can sit on his butt for more than 23 hours and not respond to me his customers?

Saint Nick you failed.  You tried to be cute with the “Merry Christmas” bit and blew it.  Whoever your agency is should be fired and you should consider working with someone like me who knows what they are doing.  They should have known better.  They should have served a brand like “Santa Claus” with their A-list talent.

Instead, you have a full-blown crisis thanks to me your arrogance and bad advice from your consultants.  Nice job ruining the holidays for everyone.

Ho, ho, ho, indeed!

————————–

This will be my last blog post of 2011.  Thanks to everyone who supports HighTalk, especially my subscribers and readers.  And Season’s Greetings to us all!

 

Social Media, Uncategorized
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Why Wikipedia Should Shoulder Blame for Violations

December 15, 2011 by gfsnell3 0 Comments

Wikipedia is for everyone.

Because they do a lousy job of explaining themselves.  I’ll get to that momentarily.  But first why is Wikipedia hands off for PR people?

The reason is simple:

Because Wikipedia isn’t an owned, earned or paid channel.

For those of us who don’t work in marketing or communications, those distinctions are how the industry identifies media channels:

Owned media are those assets under the direct control of a brand: dot-com content, Facebook page, Twitter account, a blog or even packaging.

Earned media is getting or enticing others to write or share your content: a news article, a TV segment, a retweet, a blog post, etc.

And finally paid media is content that a brand purchases to distribute: TV or online advertising, sponsorships and advertorials.

Wikipedia doesn’t fall into any of these categories.  Yet PR and marketing people don’t seem to understand this distinction when it comes to Wikipedia.

There’s a disconnect and a big reason why falls on Wikipedia.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been asked by clients to change, add or delete content from their Wikipedia entries.  When I explain that Weber Shandwick has a hands off policy on Wikipedia there is nearly always push back.  The most common refrain is: “But it’s our page!”

“But it’s not your page,” I explain.  “It belongs to Wikipedia and it’s community.”

This explanation is generally met with one of several reactions: dismissal, disbelief and even a “Can they do that?”

Um.  Yes, they can.

Last week, Bell Pottinger, a UK-based PR agency, was called out by Wikipedia for having their consultants altering Wikipedia posts about their clients.  Wikipedia took the drastic step of suspending the accounts of 10 consultants who work for Bell Pottinger.  Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales claimed that Bell Pottinger “embarrassed their clients” and questioned the firm’s ethical standards.

That’s way too strong considering the convoluted way Wikipedia presents its policies.  Altering an entry on a social platform that in its own rules claims “anyone can change articles” should be careful with its criticism of those who take that claim literally.  Because, as it turns out, it isn’t true.

You have to dig deeper to get here:

“Wikipedia is written collaboratively by largely anonymous Internet volunteers who write without pay. Anyone with Internet access can write and make changes to Wikipedia articles (except in certain cases where editing is restricted to prevent disruption or vandalism). Users can contribute anonymously, under a pseudonym, or with their real identity, if they choose.”

I’ve added the emphasis.  As you can see, this passage from Wikipedia’s rules page is far from specific.  Discovering what exactly are those “certain cases where editing is restricted” is more difficult to find.  But you’ll find it in Wikipedia’s conflict of interest section where it states:

“If one of the points underneath applies to you:

  1. you are being paid, in money or other rewards, to change Wikipedia for a company or group (whether you are working for the group, or for a company paid to advertise the group); or,
  2. you expect to gain money or other rewards from changing Wikipedia; for example, by being the owner or other stakeholder of a company or other organization about which you are writing;

then we very strongly encourage you to not make changes to Wikipedia in areas where there is a conflict of interest, because that would make your edits non-neutral (biased). Wikipedia’s neutral point of view policy states that all articles must represent views fairly and without bias, and conflicts of interest do stop Wikipedia from being able to do this. If your changes would not be neutral, do not post them.”

Emphasis on this one belongs to Wikipedia.  Frankly, they are not “very strongly” discouraging they are forbidding it.  So Wikipedia should come right out and say so.  As you can see Wikipedia’s own policy is not clear.

So is it any wonder that some PR and marketing people don’t understand – or can even find – the policy?

It’s true that anyone who has worked with Wikipedia knows the editors are ruthless about forbidding representatives of companies from posting content, but not everyone comes armed with that experience.  If Wikipedia wants to crack down on edits from brands and PR people then it needs to do a better job of explaining and publicizing its own policies.

What do you think?  Have you worked with Wikipedia before?  Have you edited copy there?  What has your experience been like?

Links:

BBC News story on Bell Pottinger and Wikipedia scandal

About Wikipedia

Wikipedia’s Conflict of Interest policy

Business, Public Relations, Social Media Consulting
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There’s No Such Thing As Quiet Time

December 8, 2011 by gfsnell3 3 Comments

Big noise is the new black.

Jack hammers are rattling in the background.  A loud jarring noise that vibrates my windows and makes it difficult for me to focus on writing a presentation.

Another distraction is a world filled with distractions.

So it was a happy coincidence that as I was reading the New York Times this morning, I came upon Maureen Dowd’s column “Silence is Golden.”

Dowd writes:

“As far back as half-a-century ago, the Swiss philosopher Max Picard warned: “Nothing has changed the nature of man so much as the loss of silence,” once as natural as the sky and air.

As fiendish little gadgets conspire to track our movements and record our activities wherever we go, producing a barrage of pictures of everything we’re doing and saying, our lives will unroll as one long instant replay.

There will be fewer and fewer of what Virginia Woolf called “moments of being,” intense sensations that stand apart from the “cotton wool of daily life.””

Can I get an amen?

How often does anyone silently contemplate anything?  During Thanksgiving break I went for a walk in the woods with my youngest daughter and happened upon two other solo hikers – one listening to music through ear buds and the other checking email.

We do our thinking on the fly – usually while multi-tasking – and as Malcolm Gladwell outlined for us we do our decision-making in a blink of an eye without really thinking at all.  What we’re really doing is reacting in real-time.

Noise is everywhere.  Beeping, buzzing, blinking and vibrating.  Distractions are no longer distractions, but the normal course of how we conduct business.  In the course of writing this blog post, I’ve gone to the work commons for a coffee, checked email at least three times (and written at least four responses), watched the draft of a client video and checked TweetDeck.

Yes, it embarrasses me to know that I can no longer seem to focus on one task at a time  My normal course of business is to do many things rapidly – bing, bang, bing.  I start here, go there, return here, move to something else.  That’s how my brain is now wired (Nicholas Carr explores this topic further in his excellent book “The Shallows”).

I have colleagues that have a difficult time putting down their smart phones – even during one-on-one conversations.  Are we all becoming Internet addicts with impulse control disorders?

What about you?  Do you still value quiet time?  Are you able to get anytime to simply think anymore?  Do you multi-task all the time?  As I recently told a colleague: “If I’m not interrupted every 10 minutes then I interrupt myself.”  Does that describe you as well?

Links:

Maureen Dowd’s column “Silence is Golden”

Malcolm Gladwell’s book “Blink”

Nicholas Carr’s book “The Shallows”

Less Phone, More Quiet

Our Gigantic Impulse Control Disorder

Culture, Social Media
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