'Cross The Breeze

Essentials on engagement

September 11, 2007 by Kris Hoet 0 Comments

A couple of days ago I stumbled upon a very good post on engagement that was written by Mike Arauz. I think someone passed it on via Twitter but I don’t remember exactly. In this post Mike writes about the three essential elements of engagement: relevance, utility and delight.

Relevance
How each customer’s choices are guided by myriad personal values and lifestyle circumstances…

Utility
How you actually want to make yourself useful by offering customers something they need…

Delight
Give your customers the pleasure of discovery…

Great post, read the details on Mike’s blog. It reminded me again of the ‘passion starts with two simple words‘ post Kevin wrote long time ago.

Technorati Tags: engagement, passion, relevance, delight, utility, essentials

bringtheloveback, consumer, influence, marketing

blogging, community, influence, internet, research, social media, tracking

The M20: Top marketer blogs

August 26, 2007 by Kris Hoet 1 Comment

I wrote about this new marketing hotlist before, but now after the alpha, beta and gamma versions the final list is here. This list was created to highlight popular blogs from client-side marketing professionals and I’m happy to be on the list.

Peter Kim, the analyst at Forrester Research in Boston that created the list, calculated som form of rank based on a combined set of metrics:

Authority: 20% Technorati Authority + 20% Google PageRank
Attention: 10% Alexa traffic
Influence: 50% Feed subscribers

Since feed subscribers is the most difficult to track, Peter uses Feedburner stats when available and Bloglines for others. In the case of Bloglines he makes the assumption that these only account for 20% of the actual amount of subscribers. This assumption is based on cases where both numbers were available so that makes sense to me.

Here’s the list, which will be updated every month from now on, now we just need a blog badge for this ;)

Technorati Tags: hotlist, marketing, m20, authority, influence, attention, peterkim, forrester

community, hotlist, influence, internet, marketing, tracking

Read what matters

August 22, 2007 by Kris Hoet 10 Comments

When I was going through my feeds today I discovered a new service called aideRSS and given my +300 subscriptions I’m always interested to find out better ways to manage these. It seemed like that is exactly what aideRSS is able to do so I checked it out immediately this morning. First thought: brilliant.

AideRSS2

There are some feeds in my reader that definitely could be skimmed down to the most interesting posts, like the del.icio.us/popular feed (image above) for instance so I gave that a try. After uploading a feed you can select to see all posts or only the good post, great posts or best posts. This is based on the PostRank feature that is propriatory to aideRSS and unfortunately the help page about that is offline for the moment as I’m curious to find out more about how they calculate that.

You can upload your whole OPML into the service, you can subscribe to a filtered feed (like all best posts from a feed) in the integrated feedreader or in your own. There are sharing widgets etc etc. And as you can see in the screenshot above, you get immediate info from del.icio.us, Digg, Technorati, … on the interaction for that post. This is something that I suggested to Technorati a few weeks ago so I obviously like that as well.

Best of all? It’s pretty amazingly fast (especially when they have a blog on record yet). And it’s there that I see the only problem for now as well, each time I did get an error it had something to do with uploading a feed that wasn’t in the system already. Hopefully they’ll fix that soon. And as said the PostRank information page gives an error as does the aideRSS blog for the moment.

Overall I think aideRSS still needs work but it offers a pretty good and fast solution with very good navigation so definitely worth a try. Sometimes it crashes when trying to add a new blog and I get the feeling there’s work to do on the PostRank score as well looking at some of the differences between blogs on that topic. I also think they have an opportunity to do some of the stuff we saw on http://share.opml.org. Anyway good stuff you guys, I would give that feedback on your forum as well if it weren’t down for the moment ;)

[Via Blogologie]

Technorati Tags: aiderss, feedreader, rss, feeds, optimization, filtering, service

blogging, community, hotlist, influence, internet, research, technology, tracking

Technorati: where’s the innovation (2)

August 4, 2007 by Kris Hoet 0 Comments

technorank2

This isn’t exactly what I had in mind when I wrote this post, but seems like Technorati did read it though. Alright, I’m just kidding although the screenshot is 100% real. Talking about that particular post, I had some good interactions on and off my blog about it, but none of them were from Technorati.

Technorati Tags: technorati, fun, weird, rank, authority, conversation, reaction

blogging, fun, influence, internet

Technorati: where’s the innovation?

July 31, 2007 by Kris Hoet 10 Comments

I don’t understand Technorati, and I’m pretty sure I’m not alone. Here and there I see people thinking the same as I do. Why didn’t Technorati come up with that feature? Why hasn’t Technorati improved that part of the process? Hell, why hasn’t Technorati changes virtually anything but the design during the last 2 years? Alright, they did add Authority, but not too much science behind that is there?

I don’t understand Technorati. They have the first mover advantage, but I’m thinking bloggers mainly stick to it because it is Technorati. It’s what they know since the beginning and everyone refers to it. You can wonder how long that’s going to last though. They also have nearly every blog on their system so they own the place, isn’t that a good start to do good – better – best?

Now I don’t know much of programming, APIs, … and that sort of stuff so maybe all of what I’m going to write here might not be possible, but these are just a few ideas of what I think Technorati should be working on today:

Blog claim: Make this a real blog claim, so more than just a URL claim. Many WordPress.com or Typepad users have more than one url. One given by the service (or even more) and maybe their own domain. How difficult can it be to claim both URLs as being one and the same blog. Now I have 2 authority ranks, one for each URL, instead of something combined. Plus, I see links from myself to myself… like I wanted that.
Extended profile: Create the possibility for bloggers to add additional data to their profile, to their claimed blogs. This information can be very useful to build a real and meaningful authority ranking. Like the blog feeds for instance, on many occasions there are more feeds for the same blog. But also the Twitter feed for instance or other useful social network data. Some information can be linked to a blog’s authority, some to a blogger’s authority rank.
Use the APIs: Considering a blogger would add this data (and I’m pretty sure they will add it), work with it. Use the APIs of other services like Bloglines, Digg, Delicious, Twitter, … whatever to capture data that belong to the claimed URLs and Feeds. How many times was blog saved in Delicious or Digg, did it ever come up on Techmeme, how many Bloglines readers does it have, … This will give Technorati some data from which something called authority makes sense.
Create categories: Across the globe people are creating several blogger hotlists: top 150 on Marketing, top 100 blogs of Belgium, etc etc. That’s all good, but most of the time the list you want doesn’t exist. I want the Top 15 in Belgium on cars, where do I go? If I had to put in my home country with my profile, that would solve one part. And introduce categories. Now I hear you, everyone will put themselves in so many categories that it doesn’t make sense anymore… well, only allow a few categories then (2 or 3) forcing people to be specific.
Technorati Pro: I worked in the cinema industry for 7 years and one service that always proved to be great was IMDB Pro. I guess, most of you here know IMDB and you have to admit that the public service is already a good information source on movies. IMDB Pro will offer at least double the amount of information. Nothing interesting for me now, but when in cinema it was very useful. Technorati should be able to do the same. General information on trends and authority as the public service it is now, using some of the information I mentioned before. And then add a Pro service that would allow every user to do a lot more specific & personal queries and comparisons on blogs, introduce improved brandtracking etc. Not every company needs or can afford Buzzlogic or other, there’s an opportunity for Technorati here.

Finally, before anybody starts commenting on this. Many bloggers find this focus on authority and ranking useless. Especially the bigger they are, the less they claim it’s interesting. First of all, I don’t buy it. Second, it’s not for the bloggers themselves that we should fix this ranking issue. It’s the people and companies that want to work with bloggers that need this kind of data. Tracking conversations about your brand and jumping in where needed is one thing, but if you want to be a bit more proactive in your approach you need to know where to go.

Overall, authority and influence measurement fascinates me and I can only applaud several exercises being done by Forrester’s Peter Kim, Edelman’s David Brain (and team), … hopefully Technorati innovates in this spaces.

Feel free to chime in. And get it to Technorati for me please. I know emailing them doesn’t help. The thing is: I want Technorati to be great, it’ll serve me well. I just don’t think it is great anymore. David?

Technorati Tags: technorati, innovation, request, pro, categories, api, claims, profile, influence, authority, ranking, edelman, forrester

blogging, community, influence, internet, pr, social media

New marketing hotlist

July 30, 2007 by Kris Hoet 5 Comments

A few days ago a new hotlist with marketing blogs was launched in beta. After Mack’s Top 25 Marketing Blogs which is the classic with 66 weeks of ‘history’ we got Todd And’s Power 150 that was recently ‘acquired’ by AdAge. Everytime I added the whole OPML to my feedreader and everytime I kept a few after the ‘testperiod’, blogs I hadn’t heard about before but that were a good read. There are many marketing related blogs in my reader and I do have my own favorites.

So last week the M20 was launched by Peter Kim. Pete is an analyst of Forrester Research and he started this list as he wanted to list up marketing voices from the client side. No consultants, agency folks, … but marketing representatives.

“So I’m starting a list to highlight the most popular blogs written by client-side marketing professionals. These are people who are doing their brands a favor by engaging customers and prospects in conversation.”

So I sent my blog to Pete and I was actually amazed that I made it to the beta version of the list. I’ve downloaded the OPML as usual and added it to my reader. It was also grea to see 5 blogs from fellow Microsoft colleagues and 4 from fellow Belgians on 31 blogs in the list. And I already got connected (again) to someone because of the list, good to talk to you Tamara.

Here is the list (more on how the listing is made can be found here):

Listen Up! :: 63. John Porcaro, Group Manager – Online Communications, Microsoft.
ExperienceCurve :: 61. Karl Long, Web/Social Media Integration Manager, Nokia.
Strategic Public Relations :: 55. Kevin Dugan, Director of Marketing Communications, FRCH Design.
Todd And – The Power To Connect :: 48. Todd Andrlik, Director of Marketing and PR, Leopardo Construction.
Marketing Nirvana :: 46. Mario Sundar, Community Evangelist, LinkedIn.
Decker Marketing :: 44. Sam Decker, VP Marketing, Bazaarvoice.
Flooring The Consumer :: Technorati authority = 39. Authored by CB Whittemore, Director of In-Store Innovation, Wear-Dated Carpet Fiber.
The Marketing Excellence Blog :: 31. Eric Kintz, VP Marketing, Digital Photography & Entertainment, Hewlett-Packard.
cgm :: 31. Pete Blackshaw, CMO, Nielsen Buzzmetrics.
Bernaisesource :: 28. Dan Greenfield, VP Corporate Communications, Earthlink.
Cross The Breeze :: 27. Kris Hoet, Marketing Communications Manager, Microsoft.
Churbuck.com :: 148. David Churbuck, VP Global Web Marketing, Lenovo.
Masiguy :: 162. Tim Jackson, Brand Manager, Masi Bicycles.
AttentionMax :: 153. Max Kalehoff, VP Marketing, Nielsen Buzzmetrics.
Emerson Process Experts :: 130. Jim Cahill, Marketing Communications Manager, Emerson Process Management.
BeRelevant! :: 23. Tamara Gielen, Email Marketing Manager – Belgium, eBay.
Brandopia :: 22. Geert Desager, Trade Marketing Manager, Microsoft.
Buzz Marketing For Technology :: 21. Paul Dunay, Director of Global Field & Interactive Marketing, BearingPoint.
Community Group Therapy :: 21. Sean O’Driscoll, General Manager of Community Support and MVP, Microsoft.
The Client Side :: 21. Michael Seaton, Director – Digital Marketing, Scotiabank.
“Turbo” Todd Watson :: 20. Todd Watson, IBM software group – web marketing, IBM.
John Dragoon’s Blog :: 20. John Dragoon, CMO, Novell.
The HP LaserJet Blog :: 20. Vince Ferraro, VP of Worldwide Marketing – LaserJet BU, HP.
The Changing Face of Media :: 20. Scott Berg, Worldwide Media Director, HP.
Marketing Monster :: 19. Michael Morton, Marketing Specialist, Lampo Group.
Bad idea, indeed :: 18. Philippe Deltenre, Business Development & Strategy Manager, Microsoft.
The Innovative Marketer :: 18. Steve Gershik, Director of Marketing Innovation, Eloqua.
Sony Electronics Blog :: 17. Rick Clancy, Head of US Corporate Communications, Sony.
John Heald’s Blog :: 16. John Heald, Cruise Director, Carnival.
The Kristasphere :: 16. Krista Summit, Web Marketing Strategist, Lenovo.
Randy’s Journal :: 15. Randy Tinseth, VP Marketing, Boeing.

Bonuslink: CK just made a list of all female marketing bloggers, yet another hotlist… or is that a hot list ;)

Technorati Tags: m20, peterkim, viralgarden, hotlist, marketing, blogs, power150

blogging, community, hotlist, influence, marketing

Thinking blogger

June 22, 2007 by Kris Hoet 1 Comment

Being rewarded for just writing your opinion on a blog is always a pleasant thing, and it was a nice surprise when Mark Goren listed me in his ‘thinking blogger’ award list. The idea of the ‘thinking blogger awards’ came from ilker yoldas and his his answer to the Z list thinking that is a bit too random as a list. So he started this meme to share a shortlist of ’5 blogs that make me think’ and after a few months of traveling it’s great to see Mark tagged me on his version of this list.

In the past I already made my hotlists once for both marketing and advertising blogs and some people that were nominated before by Mark (or the people before him) are on these lists as well. These lists were actually my answer on the Z list and other initiatives, thinking of the blogs that stand out. It looks like I need to update that list again though one of these days, since there are a few people that should be added now like Andy Nulman, Matt Dickman, Toby Bloomberg,… etc (but that’s for later).

So here’s my ‘thinking blogger award’ list, where I tried not to nominate people that have been already (congrats to all of you as well):

Hugh MacLeod (Gapingvoid): I like Hugh’s cartoons, they are fun and interesting. But also his comments and opinion (read the Hughtrain for instance) are mind provoking so reason enough to be in this list.
David Armano (Logic+Emotion): If you know David’s blog you think graphics, I like to read it most for his views related to social networks, influence, etc… as they are very similar with how I think of it, but way better presented.
Guy Kawasaki (How to change the world): I’m quite a big fan of his ‘the art of’ series but it’s been a while since his last one. Guy is just smart and so he writes smart stuff, this is must read.
Richard MacManus (ReadWriteWeb): Richard is not writing on R/RW on his own to the team deserves credit as well of course. R/RW is an interesting blog on web technology and gives a lot more analysis on this new tech, rather than just news. Very interesting.
Ewan McIntosh (edu.blogs.com): Ewan is a smart guy looking at new (web) technology and how it can be used in education. Since we’re both interested in tech, but from a totally different angle that’s quite interesting for me.

I don’t think a lot of these guys take part in memes, but hey you asked for the 5 blogs that make me think most so that’s what you get.

If you are inclined to continue this on, I’ve got the specs to follow here:

Here are the participation rules for the Thinking Blogger Award:
1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think,
2. Link to this post (or this one or this one) so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme,
3. Optional: Proudly display the ‘Thinking Blogger Award’ with a link to the post that you wrote (here is an alternative silver version if gold doesn’t fit your blog).

Thanks again Mark for the nomination, I’ll buy you a drink in July :)

Technorati Tags: thinking blogger, z list, marketing, blogs, bloggers, hotlist, awards

blogging, community, hotlist, influence, internet, marketing

Overhyped and undervalued

June 11, 2007 by Kris Hoet 1 Comment

Last week Philippe made a great post on the (not so) global conversation, talking about the still rather limited reach numbers of most of the web2.0 services out there. Before looking at the number he quotes from a blog called Gaping Silence which I found rather interesting:

“You get a myth which diverges radically from the reality. The myth is that this is where the Web-for-everyone comes into its own, where millions of users of what was built as a broadcast Web with walled-garden interactive features start talking back to the broadcasters and breaking out of their walled gardens. The reality is that the voices of the geeks are heard even more loudly – and even more disproportionately – than before”

Now we do forget sometimes but this is very true, especially the comment about the disproportionate loud voices of the geeks. I do sometimes as well get sucked into the web, reading blogs, twittering, etc… but this is definitely not what the vast majority of the global audience is into.

Looking at some of the numbers, this strikes me even more. Youtube, Wikipedia, MySpace all have very decent reach and that is not suprise, but they’re only the top of the iceberg. It’s when you look at Delicious (0.5% global reach), Twitter (less than 0.1%). And we could go on for a while…

That said, this doesn’t mean at all the whole movement is insignificant of course. Only 2 days before Philippe’s post about this, I saw a presentation of Marc Bresseel that seemed like a perfect extension to this story. That presentation was given at the IAB Interact European congress in Brussels and started with a quote:

”We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten.”

That is also were Marc used the words ‘overhyped and undervalued’ and that resonated very well with me I must say. I think we many of the web2.0 services that are out there are indeed overhyped for now, which doesn’t mean they are not valuable, they’re just made bigger than they really are. But nevertheless, all of this will have a big impact on how this industry is going to evolve, on how we will all interact with each other in the future. I like that. That last quote is from Bill Gates by the way. Here’s the video from Marc’s presentation:

Technorati Tags: microsoft, web2.0, presentation, quote, hype, trend, value, technology, future, interact

advertising, community, influence, internet, marketing, media, microsoft, quote

Archive deepdive

June 7, 2007 by Kris Hoet 2 Comments

A couple of days ago Mark Goren tagged me, asking to do a deepdive in my blog’s archives and look up 5 posts that have a special meaning for this blog in some way. I didn’t want to focus on only those posts that were maybe the best for me, or the best in traffic so I stuck to ‘special meaning’. Here they are:

The art of being Belgian
I wrote this one after reading the book with that title, and though it should be one of the posts of this list. It was the first review of a book I did on my blog, I added some of the Belgian character to it as well and since it was picked up by the book’s publisher on their website it learned me even more that everyone’s opinion counts.

Naked Conversations
Although not on purpose, another book review (and really, I don’t do that much of them). This one I found interesting since I was amazed to get a comment from Shel Israel on this post and it would lead us eventually in having a conversation over email. It didn’t end here, as I set up a dinner with Shel and Rick inviting a couple of bloggers in Belgium and it was a great experience of the things that happen in this community.

How Influential are you?
This has become a little bit of a series as I’ve written quite a few posts that belong to this theme (here, here and here) and there are certainly more to come. I’m very interested about the question around influence, how you can measure it, map it, … and for that reason I did write my opinion down on it on a few occasions. And given my interest, many of the offline conversations I have are around this little theme as well. There’s also one person that has some great thoughts to share on this as well, that I hope to interact with on this matter and that is David Armano. David, if you have some spare time? ;) He wrote that fantastic post around the sphere of Influence for instance, exactly what I was thinking.

Everyone is a customer
A bit linked to the subject before, ‘Everyone is a customer’ is the title of the last few presentations I have given related to social media, blogging and brands and outlines some of the content of these presentations. Although the presentation itself was always adapted to the time and location, I like to keep the title. It refers to a case that I do always use in these presentations and that show the great effect of brands listening to their ‘customers’, you can read about that one here.

Not enough drama?
This post is an outsider in many ways. To begin with, it has driven far more traffic to this blog than any other post I’ve ever written. Even only on the first day it brought nearly 8.500 visitors to this blog and many thousands followed the few days after making ‘Cross The Breeze the n°1 blog on WordPress.com for a day or two. It learned me that this can happen to anyone, but given the fact the post was a bit off topic, I learned as well that it doesn’t mean people stick to your blog after.

I found this a tough task, but fun to do anyway. Going trough over 500 posts thinking which ones were special in some way is not really easy and I’m sure that I’ll think of another one or two in the next few days :) Anyway, I’m going to pass this along to Ine, Tom and Veerle. Hope you too will find some time to go through your archives, I’m interested to see your top five.

Technorati Tags: tag, archive, blog, blogging, history, transmission