‘Cross The Breeze

This was a post waiting to happen and the flights to Munich and Hamburg this week were all I needed to write it down. When I started blogging almost 3 years ago it was mainly to find out for myself what the whole blogosphere thing was all about. Initially the idea wasn’t to keep on doing this for long but it caught on to me and I stuck to it since then. There are ever more signs thought that blogging is not quite the same anymore as 3 or more years ago.

Most people start blogging because it’s providing them with an interesting way to share their thoughts and interact with others based on that, whether it related to your work, hobby or personal interests. Just check the ‘about page’ on a random blog and in most cases this will say something like “This blog is about my personal opinion, my thoughts and my thoughts only, etc.” A blog is where you can be yourself. We say what we think, the way we think it without compromising. At least we did, but is that still the case?

Lately I get the feeling this idea of ‘honest personal opinion’ is fading out as more and more blogs seem to pick up on the cheesiest pitches from marketers, agencies and PR folks. Being a blogger myself I get a lot of the same requests, offers, freebees, … from agencies like many of my blogging colleagues do so it’s easier to see when someone picks up on an offer. And I got to tell you, when an agency sends you something like this (recent example via Facebook):

“Hey Kris, I had to contact as much bloggers as possible from my boss to show our latest project for brand X. Check it out and link to it if you like it. That way I have to pay less on banner advertising.”

… and when in the 2-3 days after that you see some of your valued blogging colleagues write about this, I can’t help thinking bloggers actually became a very easy audience. This particular case is a Belgian example but since blogger lists like the Power150  exist there are also much more global examples as well.

Not only the personal blogs seem to change though. Don Dodge noticed recently that blogging has gone commercial and that there aren’t much individuals left in the top bloglists. And the ones that are still there are also selling out, think of Scoble’s latest tweet ‘featuring’ Seagate!

The bigger commercial blog networks then? They became media… Techcrunch is going gossip, Valleywag is going naked and Pete Cashmore of Mashable is your next tech rock star. It sometimes feels like half of Mashable’s posts are about Pete, the meet ups and all the sponsors related to all this. And remember how I wrote earlier about how Marketing Pilgrim preaches Marketing 2.0 and at the same time is stuffed with display ads all over the site.

I guess I could go on and on for a long time on this. Every week I read something that shows how the blogosphere is changing: you can hire a blogger at Marketingfacts to live blog your event, Lifehacker Gina Trapani created a PR blacklist, … not sure if it’s all for the best.

Discuss. Just remember one thing, this is my blog with my opinion… and definitely not for sale.

Keep ‘em coming Rick. Read my earlier “Listen and learn” post or this new one from Rick Segal to know what I’m on about. Here’s a teaser:

“VCs are typically stupid when it comes to this section so be prepared for a dumb question blizzard.”

Clueless sometimes…

It seems ages since I last opened up Live Writer last time. This is not because I stopped loving it, but because the blogging rhythm on this blog (and on I Blog Mustang) have been very slow lately. It seems like the only times I get to do some writing lately is when traveling. The last posts were all (or almost all) written on trains and planes.

While I see people writing about how Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed, … or whatever other service has taken over from their blogging, that is actually not the case with me. I am indeed more active on Twitter than on this blog, but that is because of the short and instant nature of the service vs the time you need to spend writing blogposts. I do still dedicate the time I need to reading my RSS, luckily enough as I’m addicted to news - couldn’t do without.

In the meantime we’re working hard on releasing some new campaigns for Windows Live and MSN in Europe (more on these at Live In Europe) and we’re also gearing up in the planning for next year as our fiscal year starts at July 1st and not January 1st like with most companies.

For now, I’ll just try and write some more posts about things that I’ve been meaning to write now that I am on my way to Stockholm. Share your travel via Dopplr if you want ;)

I’ll keep the blabla for myself on this one and let the presentation do all the talking. Great one from The Kaiser - make sure you check out his blog.

When brands make that step to be more social and decide to let go of control, we should applaud that. Sometimes we tend not to notice this, and focus just on those brands (still the most) that don’t get it at all.

Club Med is making a first step to engage with the community and in a very nice and smart way if you ask me. Interel - Club Med’s PR agency - worked with Caroline ‘Rolling Talks’ Maerten and Adhese for this first campaign. They asked blogger/photographer Ine if she was interested in going to Chamonix to one of the Club Med Villages. Nothing extraordinary here, but the nicest part of all this is that a special banner (developed by Adhese) is showing the latest updates of this trip tapping into Ine’s Twitter and Flickr stream. These banners are shown on a selection of Belgian’s most important blogs.

Here are 2 screenshots of that banner:

I don’t know about you but I think that Club Med has made a very smart move here. And the choice of Ine as the blogger to be invited is a very important part of this smart move.

Congrats to Caroline for setting it up with the agency and for Adhese to keep innovating, also within the banner.

When 2 guys come up with an amazing and unique idea and manage to deliver it, what do you do next? Do something even more amazing? Exactly :)

The Age of Conversation learned me a couple of things:

• If you’re passionate about something, any kind of collaboration can work. Look at how someone in the US and someone in Australia figured out how to get a book written by a 100 or more people living all over the world.
• When you’re sharing a passion with other people, it creates a bond that you didn’t imagine to be possible in a situation where you’ve actually never met most of these people. I’m pretty sure that everybody who was part of the original Age of Conversation will testify to that.
• The internet enables conversations globally, but nothing beats meeting people in real life - hence why some of the same people driving the AOC are now also driving the Blogger Social event in NYC. I’m not sure how big the overlap is between the 80 Blogger Social attendees and the AOC, but believe me when I say it’s big.
• Even if the length of the article is about the same as a regular blog post, writing for a book is harder than for a blog. Now this may seem very logical to most of you, but it became really clear when I did my writing for the AOC.
• The term ‘conversation’ is not overused at all. I’ve mentioned before how powerful it is as a metaphor and as long as it takes to make sure more people get it… we’ll have to continue the conversation.

The last point is also a good intro the the AOC v2 as all participants voted for “Age Of Conversation: Why don’t people get it?” and this time 275 authors will contribute to the book, more than double the amount of last year. Hopefully we can duplicate that effect as well on the proceeds of this book which all go to charity.

Here are all the 275 contributors, myself included:

Adam Crowe, Adrian Ho, Aki Spicer, Alex Henault, Amy Jussel, Andrew Odom, Andy Nulman, Andy Sernovitz, Andy Whitlock, Angela Maiers, Ann Handley, Anna Farmery, Armando Alves, Arun Rajagopal, Asi Sharabi, Becky Carroll, Becky McCray, Bernie Scheffler, Bill Gammell, Bob Carlton, Bob LeDrew, Brad Shorr, Bradley Spitzer, Brandon Murphy, Branislav Peric, Brent Dixon, Brent Macfarlane, Brian Reich, C.C. Chapman, Cam Beck, Casper Willer, Cathleen Rittereiser, Cathryn Hrudicka, Cedric Giorgi, Charles Sipe, Chris Kieff, Chris Cree, Chris Wilson, Christina Kerley, C.B. Whittemore, Clay Parker Jones, Chris Brown, Colin McKay, Connie Bensen, Connie Reece, Cord Silverstein, Corentin Monot, Craig Wilson, Daniel Honigman, Dan Goldstein, Dan Schawbel, Dana VanDen Heuvel, Dan Sitter, Daria Radota Rasmussen, Darren Herman, Darryl Patterson, Dave Davison, Dave Origano, David Armano, David Bausola, David Berkowitz, David Brazeal, David Koopmans, David Meerman Scott, David Petherick, David Reich, David Weinfeld, David Zinger, Deanna Gernert, Deborah Brown, Dennis Price, Derrick Kwa, Dino Demopoulos, Doug Haslam, Doug Meacham, Doug Mitchell, Doug Hanna, Doug Karr, Drew McLellan, Duane Brown, Dustin Jacobsen, Dylan Viner, Ed Brenegar, Ed Cotton, Efrain Mendicuti, Ellen Weber, Emily Reed, Eric Peterson, Eric Nehrlich, Ernie Mosteller, Faris Yakob, Fernanda Romano, Francis Anderson, G. Kofi Annan, Gareth Kay, Gary Cohen, Gaurav Mishra, Gavin Heaton, Geert Desager, George Jenkins, Gi Hoffman, Gianandrea Facchini, Gordon Whitehead, Graham Reginald Hill, Greg Verdino, Gretel Going, Hillel Cooperman, Hugh Weber, J. Eric Potter, J.C. Hutchins, James Gordon-Macintosh, Jamey Shiels, Jasmin Tragas, Jason Oke, Jay Ehret, Jeanne Dininni, Jeff De Cagna, Jeff Gwynne, Jeff Noble, Jeff Wallace, Jennifer Warwick, Jenny Meade, Jeremy Fuksa, Jeremy Helipern, Jeremy Middleton, Jeroen Verkroost, Jessica Hagy, Joanna Young, Joe Pulizzi, Joe Talbott, John Herrington, John Jantsch, John Moore, John Rosen, John Todor, Jon Berg, Jon Swanson, Jonathan Trenn, Jordan Behan, Julie Fleischer, Justin Flowers, Justin Foster, Karl Turley, Kate Trgovac, Katie Chatfield, Katie Konrath, Kenny Lauer, Keri Willenborg, Kevin Jessop, Kris Hoet, Krishna De, Kristin Gorski, Laura Fitton, Laurence Helene Borei, Lewis Green, Lois Kelly, Lori Magno, Louise Barnes-Johnston, Louise Mangan, Louise Manning, Luc Debaisieux, Marcus Brown, Mario Vellandi, Mark Blair, Mark Earls, Mark Goren, Mark Hancock, Mark Lewis, Mark McGuinness, Mark McSpadden, Matt Dickman, Matt McDonald, Matt Moore, Michael Hawkins, Michael Karnjanaprakorn, Michelle Lamar, Mike Arauz, Mike McAllen, Mike Sansone, Mitch Joel, Monica Wright, Nathan Gilliatt, Nathan Snell, Neil Perkins, Nettie Hartsock, Nick Rice, Oleksandr Skorokhod, Ozgur Alaz, Paul Chaney, Paul Hebert, Paul Isakson, Paul Marobella, Paul McEnany, Paul Tedesco, Paul Williams, Pet Campbell, Pete Deutschman, Peter Corbett, Phil Gerbyshak, Phil Lewis, Phil Soden, Piet Wulleman, Rachel Steiner, Raj Menon, Reginald Adkins, Richard Huntington, Rishi Desai, R.J. Northam, Rob Mortimer, Robert Hruzek, Robyn McMaster, Roger von Oech, Rohit Bhargava, Ron Shevlin, Ryan Barrett, Ryan Karpeles, Ryan Rasmussen, Sam Huleatt, Sandy Renshaw, Scott Goodson, Scott Monty, Scott Townsend, Scott White, Sean Howard, Sean Scott, Seni Thomas, Seth Gaffney, Shama Hyder, Sheila Scarborough, Sheryl Steadman, Simon Payn, Sonia Simone, Spike Jones, Stanley Johnson, Stephen Collins, Stephen Cribbett, Stephen Landau, Stephen Smith, Steve Bannister, Steve Hardy, Steve Portigal, Steve Roesler, Steven Verbruggen, Steve Woodruff, Sue Edworthy, Susan Bird, Susan Gunelius, Susan Heywood, Tammy Lenski, Terrell Meek, Thomas Clifford, Thomas Knoll, Tiffany Kenyon, Tim Brunelle, Tim Buesing, Tim Connor, Tim Jackson, Tim Longhurst, Tim Mannveille, Tim Tyler, Timothy Johnson, Tinu Abayomi-Paul, Toby Bloomberg, Todd Andrlik, Troy Rutter, Troy Worman, Uwe Hook, Valeria Maltoni, Vandana Ahuja, Vanessa DiMauro, Veronique Rabuteau, Wayne Buckhanan, William Azaroff, Yves Van Landeghem

This year I really wanted to get to most of the best interactive/technology/marketing conferences in Europe (and a little bit US). I already made it to conferences like LeWeb3, LIFT08 and MIX08 but also smaller events like Euroblog 2008 and Plugg. I missed DLD so hopefully I can make up for that next year.

The next conference that was on the list is The Next Web. This conference takes place on April 3rd and 4th in the Westergasfabriek in Amsterdam and has not only built up some serieus ’street cred’ over the years, it really looks like an interesting event to be at. With speakers such as Leah Culver, Werner Vogels, Chris Saad and Kevin Rose, presentations from 24 startups and more you might want to think about going there. And watch out for the Diggnation episode that will be live recorded at the event. I can’t go unfortunately because I’ve already planned on going to the Blogger Social in NYC the same period, but if you’re thinking about going then you can register here, and use this promo code (thekrismaster) which will give you a 200 EUR discount! (First 10 people only)

After all that, I hope I can make it to reboot on June 1st normally (if there’s going to be one - is there?) and PICNIC on September 24th. I’ll definitely be at the Next Conference in Hamburg on May 15th in the meantime as I’ll be on a panel at the event.

But first, there’s The Next Web, mark it in your calendar. And to Patrick and crew - good luck ;)

Within a week we’ll be on our way to Vegas again for the MIX08 conference. I quite enjoyed last year’s MIX conference with the announcements of Silverlight and Expression Studio, but also for presentations such as Lou Carbone’s for instance (who will be back this year by the way).

What I like about this year’s agenda as well is that there will be a bit more presentations and workshops that aren’t all 100% tech, as that was probably my only wish after last year. With people like Steve Ballmer, Lou Carbone, Guy Kawasaki, David Armano and obviously also Hugh MacLeod and Loic Le Meur (and many others) it looks indeed like that is happening. Anyway, a lot of presentations these 3 days so to make sure I don’t miss anything, I’ve fired up the schedule builder on the MIX website to make sure I scheduled everything I wanted to see (and added that to my Outlook which is an option within ‘my schedule’). Small note on the schedule builder, you need to be registered for the event to be able to use it. And unfortunately, if you aren’t registered already, the event is sold out since last week.

So if you’re going to MIX as well (and you’re reading this blog) then let me know so we can connect in Vegas (maybe in the Blogzone). I guess that relates immediately to the one big thing I’m missing on the MIX website and that’s the social element. Now I’m not waiting for the next social network, but since I’ve got a login after registration anyway, it would have been nice to be able to use that some more. Who do I know that is going? Which sessions are they going to? It’s like adding a bit of LIFT08 to MIX08 :) That said, it was interesting and fun last year, I’m sure it’ll be so again this year.

PS: Oh yeah, and thanks to David Armano, I now known in Vegas as ‘Two Slice’

I’m using the service for almost a year now and still this is the first post I write about it. It’s significant how my attitude about Twitter has changed over time. I was very sceptic about Twitter before I got on the service and even when I started using it sometime early April of last year, that feeling was still very strong. I need to see for myself though, before making forming an opinion so I tested it anyway. The coverage at SXSW last year made me do that, and at MIX07 I got the first signs that Twitter was more than people ‘brushing their teeth’, ‘preparing client meeting’ or ‘waiting on the train’ etc etc

Because that was what Twitter was to me in the beginning, a lot of insignificant personal messages or people bragging about stuff. Literally telling other people ‘what are you doing?’. In an interview I did with Twitterati (a blog on Twitter) back in early May 2007 I said:

“I mainly enjoy blogging because of the conversations that it allowed me to have, rather than to read about people’s personal lives in all details. Twitter offers the same but in microformat.”

And it’s just that what has changed over the course of the last few months and what made me almost a Twitter addict today. Twitter is very much a tool that enables conversation today, and does quite a bit more as well. Probably because we started ignoring to just post about what we’re doing I guess :)

So what did I get out of Twitter so far then?

• The community improves the usage of Twitter a lot more than the Twitter team does. Think of the @replies which was an idea the Twitter folks picked up since people were using it. Think of the hashtags which is an outside initiative. Think of www.twitstat.com/m which is a much better mobile web version of Twitter than the original m.twitter.com is. Think of how clients like Twhirl and many others offer a much better experience of Twitter than the web version.
• The community builds interesting stuff around Twitter as well and Tweetscan - the Twitter search engine - is a very good example of that. Or the recently launched Tweetmeme for instance. The community also builds more silly services around it like the Tweeterboard top 100 or Twittervision but it can’t all be brilliant right ;)
• The client people use can tell you more about how much conversation people are willing to get into. If people use the msn@msntwitter.com buddy to post from Live Messenger they probably aren’t up for a lot of conversation. Why? Since they unfortunately don’t see their timeline in the client so just post stuff from there.
• The client people use can tell you how fast (or not) people will see your replies, but more importantly your direct messages. In Twhirl they show up in your timeline, whereas in the webpage there’s not sign at all (almost) that you got one unless you go check your email.
• The quality of the links people share tend to be pretty good. I click a lot more on the links sent out via Twitter than anywhere else because of that. When people share a link, even to their own blog posts, they tend to have thought it through a bit more an decided to send only the best.
• Don’t put your RSS stream into your Twitter account, that is bad. It’s counter to the point I just mentioned, it is not enabling any conversation, it’s cluttering ‘my timeline’. I have a blog, so do you and we all got feed readers to read them.
• A ‘corporate’ Twitter account can work. But don’t push out your RSS stream to begin with (as in the point above) and make sure it’s personal. Why is @marketingprofs interesting? Because we know it’s Ann Handley who’s behind it and we know Ann and we like the conversation we’re having.
• Size doesn’t matter, focus on quality instead of quantity. I hear so many people talking about their 3000th, 5000th, … tweet. Who cares, if none of them were interesting that’s not really very good is it. We don’t brag about the number of blogposts we write per month or year so why would it matter for tweets? Another number that gets mentioned a lot is the number of followers. Again that number is not so significant. The ‘oh my god I have 2000 followers’ when you follow more than 6000 people yourself, what does that say to you then?
• Twitter can serve many kinds of communication purposes. One day I was asking if anyone was interested in going for a drink in the London area, the next day you’re looking for help with your blog or to find the name of a song. Or maybe you help someone else out, get people’s opinion, … etc etc whatever you can think of.
• You don’t have to follow every one back that follows you. I know this is not everyone’s opinion but that’s what I think at least. You should check out your new followers though, see what they talk about and then make the decision. I think Shel Israel (but can be wrong) once said that you can also get a good idea of what people’s interests are by looking at their Twitter favorites as well. Good idea indeed.
• But, you should make sure you keep an eye out for people talking to you though, even if you don’t follow them if answer them if needed. Maybe you’ll decide to follow them anyway because of that.
• Twitter needs to get it’s act together. How much the community loves the service, and keeps preferring it to Jaiku and Pownce (which might even be better actually to some extend) the constant breakdowns and lack of innovation of the services start to get really annoying.

Nuff said, I’m hooked. If you think of other things you have learned from Twitter that you don’t see in my list, or when you just agree (or don’t agree), drop a note in the comments.

Oh yeah, and you can follow me at http://twitter.com/crossthebreeze. And if you don’t use Twhirl yet, download it right now, you won’t regret.

Has it been a year already? Blimey! I mentioned before how The Age of Conversation was one of the more fascinating projects to be involved in last year so reading Drew’s announcement on AOC 2 there wasn’t the slightest bit of doubt, want to be part of this again. And so I am :) Thanks Drew, thanks Gavin!

That dates from a few days ago already and I didn’t have time yet to extend the call out for authors on this new AOC project, but here it is. I think it’s not too late yet, but I you want in then be quick about it. Trust me, you won’t regret, The Age of Conversation is one of these experiences you won’t likely forget. Full details to be found on Drew’s blog, get over there now!

Even my kids liked it ;)