Dealing With Google's Sidewiki Land Grab

by Josh Bernoff

We just released a research note about Sidewiki for marketers (available in full to clients only).

Let's be clear. Sidewiki is a land grab -- Google has now set up real estate on every single Web site, for commentary from the masses. (Go here to sign up -- it's part of the Google toolbar.) Once a person is signed up, they can comment on any page, and see comments from others on those pages. Google uses an algorithm to decide which comments go at the top. And Google, not the site owner, decides which content must be taken down because it’s inappropriate.

The Web is full of whining from site owners about how Sidewiki, out of their control, is not fair. Get over it, folks. Regardless of whether it is fair (since when is the Web fair), you'd be better off learning to deal with it. This is quite similar to what StumbleUpon and Delicious enable, but because it's from Google and it's more visible on pages, it's a bigger deal.

Two questions and answers.

One, will it catch on? Yes. It could take a few years to get big, as Twitter did, but because it's on Google's Toolbar, has a seductive interface (a little tab on pages with comments), and can become viral as users spread it, it's going to grow.

Two, what should marketers and site owners do? First, claim your site. Second, monitor and respond to comments. (With the Sidewiki API available, it will likely soon be built into tools like Radian6.) And third, add your own social features, now.

If you add social features like ratings and reviews, comments, and forums to your brand site, your media site, and your blogs, they'll be far more convenient for visitors. They'll generate discussion, but discussion you can moderate to your own standards. And if the interesting discussion is on your site, people won't be compelled to comment with Sidewiki.

It's likely that Microsoft will build similar features in its browser, and Yahoo! and Facebook may also dive in. But Google has the first-mover advantage. If you're smart, you'll start monitoring this activity now, while it's small. Don't say we didn't warn you.

Why I don't hate the worst hotel in Midtown Manhattan

by Josh Bernoff

This week I stayed at the worst hotel in midtown. It was hilariously bad. I learned something about service, too.

The Manhattan Broadway has only location going for it. But rooms were tight during Advertising Week in New York and I misread the star rating. Shame on me. Two minutes at TripAdvisor and I would have known better, but I was in a rush, and at the price (more than $300 a night) I assumed it was a decent quality place.

Here's all I need in a hotel: a firm bed, a lock on the door, high-speed Internet access, and quiet and darkness at night. I got the first two.

The minute I walked in the door, I smiled. I could tell what was coming. The bare drywall of the long dark hallway was marked "please pardon our appearance," a notation I thought applied very well to the tattooed guy at a PC at the end of the hall. (This PC and another one were the "Internet cafe".) Things went predictably from there. My night at the Manhattan Broadway included:

• Windows with no curtains; light shining in from the airshaft all night long.

  

• No glasses in the bathroom or room.
• A bathtub that at one time had been a jacuzzi, but the holes were filled up with cement.
• Wireless Internet access ("No refunds") which of course didn't work. (The $3 charge should have warned me -- just enough to be not worth arguing about.)
• Towels the size and consistency of sandpaper.
• A rock band practicing outside my window until late at night. When I called the desk to ask how long this was going to go on, they actually had an answer -- this was clearly a regular occurrence.

I found myself more bemused than angry. The reason: this hotel delivered on its brand promise, which apparently is, "be just barely good enough to prevent people from asking their credit card company for a refund." It did not disappoint: it promised to be a dump, and it was a dump. A Hyatt once disappointed me. But the Hyatt people care, and they made up for it. These people didn't care.

Who works in a place like this? It was clear from talking to the desk staff that their job is to listen to complaints all day long and shrug and offer explanations like "the other hotels near us are more expensive." What a soul-destroying job this must be. Those of us who write about marketing and service assume we are talking to people who care. What happens to the people who don't? What if your job is "find suckers and charge as much as possible" ? Are there business writers to serve people like that? Where do they learn to run a business like that? Can they actually survive in a world where only disconnected and ignorant people (which, on the night in question, included me) are their clientele?

Hyatt noticed my earlier post. If someone from this hotel notices my post, I'll die of shock.

Just to bring the point home, when I got home after my trip, a package was waiting for me. A marketing executive from Barilla Pasta, whom I'd met in Milan, had sent me a little something as a thank you for the conversation I'd shared with him. There, on my doorstep, was a variety of Barilla-branded pasta and baked goods from Italy -- easy for him to share, but what could be more meaningful than good food from Italy? Every bite reminds me of the clever things Barilla is doing online in Italy with online marketing.

If you're working for somebody like that, stay. If not, start looking.

A review of 147 entries to the 2009 Forrester Groundswell Awards

It's been two weeks since the deadline for entries for the Forrester Groundswell Awards. You won't know the winners until we announce them at the Forrester Consumer Forum in Chicago on October 27 (and yes, the famed green bowtie will once again make an appearance).

You can still review every single entry. (Is there anyone else who does this?) We encourage you to continue voting on the awards and leaving comments. (For those who found the bugs in our voting system, we apologize -- votes entered now will register the correct number of stars regardless of the browser you use.)

The winners will hear from us in the first week of October, including an invite to the Forrester Consumer Forum for those in the five consumer categories plus Managing and Social Impact. But while you're waiting, here are a few fun facts to keep you entertained.

• While we gave people an extra month to prepare their entries this year, 100 of the 147 entries came in within the last 24 hours of the deadline.
• Talking was the most popular consumer objective, with 34% of all the consumer entries. Talking and Supporting each received 25% of all the business-to-business entries. Embracing is hard -- only 18 of the 147 entries were in the embracing categories.
• 29% of all the entries were from technology companies. This included 31 business-to-business entries and 10 consumer technology entries. Somebody at SAP really wants to win -- SAP created eight separate entries.
• Other industries submitting many entries included non-profits and associations (12% of entries), web sites and tools (10%), business services (7%) and financial services (7%). Despite the recession we got three entries from auto companies.
• Only half of the Social Impact entries were from non-profits. The rest were from companies using social technologies for good.
• We really just did not know how to categorize this one.

Overall, the quality of entries is similar to last year, with many good application and a few that are outstanding . . . but you'll hear more about that in October. Watch this space

Dear Groundswell: Your business social netiquette questions

It sure is easy to make a mistake with all these new communications tools. I see a lot of them. And I'm on the receiving end of a lot of them. Based on my tweets on the topic, you want to talk about it. So here goes, my first column on business social netiquette.

Let's start with observations about why business social netiquette is so confusing to people:

1. Social technologies are social, that is, designed for person to person interactions. But in a business setting, you also represent a company. So first problem: are you being a person, or a company?
2. There are so many ways to communicate. Email (forwards, CCs), Twitter (retweets, @responses, and direct messages), Facebook (status and wall messages), Linked In, etc, etc.  -- and then there are the questions about responding to a request in one channel with a response in another channel. So if you're confused, don't worry, we all are (unless you are 22 and know everything, that is).
3. Almost all interactions in business are between people of different status. Like a customer support rep and a customer. Or a PR person and an analyst. So that makes things difficult, since you may be asking someone in a position of importance (or maybe just with more followers than you) to respond. That's always challenging. (My recent trip to Japan made me more aware of these status questions.)

Here's the format. I'll post questions I get (in these cases from Twitter) and my response. My answer is not the answer, it is an answer. If you have a better or different answer, put it in the comments.

I'm also going to add some personal observations about how people treated me in cases where I felt their business netiquette was questionable.

Finally -- and you won't find this in any other netiquette source -- I will suggest what I think is the appropriate penalty for these violations. In some cases I don't have the guts to apply the penalty, so I will take the cowards way out and just get my jollies by exposing the behavior right here.

So let's get to it.

lchisholm: When you get home from a job interview do you immediately invite interviewer to connect on LinkedIn?

@lchisholm: I take LinkedIn seriously in its suggestion that you only link up to trusted business contacts. So while I friend all sorts of people on Facebook, I would think it was presumptuous to ask someone on LinkedIn to connect with me if I didn't know them. I think after a single interview, you're asking for trouble -- it could even backfire on you. I'd wait until you get the job.(Another viewpoint: when you asked this on Twitter, @bhavishya responded "No, you wait three days :P")

StickyStimuli: On Twitter, how often should you link to articles vs. make a statement (no link required)?

@StickyStimuli: If you read something and it makes you think, you should always provide a link. (There, it rhymes, to make it easy to remember.) But I think it's ok to comment on something generally in the news (for example, Kanye West's recent behavior) without linking, since it's easy to find information on the topic. The reason for the link is to give your followers the benefit of learning more about what you're commenting on if they're interested.

blockgreg: People on Twitter posting about their company services "our company does X, we'd love to work with you," [is it] out of context?

If someone is asking about products your company provides, it's fine to provide some information -- if it's relevant. But I'd do a real soft-sell ("if you want info about these services, here is some"). And remember, they're going to look at your tweet stream. If you do nothing but solicit business all day, you're going to look terrible and you won't get the business. I found this a little silly, for example. (Penalty: I expose your tweetstream.)

Finally my personal experience. I recently received an email from a vendor who said he was following up because I followed him on Twitter. (It's not clear if I actually followed him, or it was someone else at Forrester.). After I didn't respond to the email, he sent a second. I told him to take me off the mailing list; he responded. But the kicker is -- each of the three emails included 500K of screen shots. I find large, unsolicited emails rude -- who knows what kind of connection or storage limitations the receiver has? Since I am somewhat well known, I get a lot of these pitches -- and I pay attention to the netiquette of the one doing the pitching. What's the right response? I just pointed out he'd made an error, but I'm not even publishing his name here. What would you do?

If you find this interesting and have your own questions, Tweet with the tag #socialnetiquette, respond to this blog post with a question, or email me at jbernoff [at] forrester dotcom.

Wrong customer, or, the perils of dog food marketing

by Josh Bernoff

I used to work for a textbook company. The CEO explained to me that we used "dog food marketing." "Our buyers are students, but the decision makers are professors. So we market to profs based on the idea that their students will benefit. Like selling dog food -- you convince the owner that the dog will like it."

Look where the textbook business is now. It tried to keep those profs happy, but the students, powerless as dogs, had to deal with bloated, $120 or $300 books they'll use once. So they rebelled, creating a burgeoning used book market. The textbook guys are scrambling to create electronic versions, but those clever students with their digital skills have the edge. This is not going to end well for the textbook companies.

Most companies have at least two kinds of customers, the ones who use their products or services, and other ones that are buyers, distributors, advertisers, or other types of partners. Often those other customers, like the professors, seem more important, since they make decisions that affect hundreds of sales or thousands of dollars.

If you make macaroni, that "other customer" may be Walmart. If you make TV shows, it may be an advertiser. If you sell software, it may be the CIO. If you are a non-profit, it's the donors that support you.

Chris Anderson's new book Free is filled with models where people who use products don't pay for them. Most of these models generate some other type of customer, like an advertiser.

Dog food marketers: beware. The more time you spend on the needs of the non-user customer, the less you are focusing on the user of your products, and the more vulnerable you become. If you empower that other customer to persuade you to make decisions not in the best interests of the the people who use your products, you are striding down the path to ruin.

Where would the movie business be if it had thought its customers were theater owners, not viewers with VCRs, HBO, and iPods?

Where would the music business be if it ignored its customers' desires for electronic singles over its retailers' desires for CDs in 1999? Oh yeah, they did. They got it, but way too late. Screwed.

This applies in government and non-profits, too. If you're a non-profit that helps kids with cancer, concentrate on the kids, not the donors. If you're in government, concentrate on the people who use your highways or collect your unemployment payments. They are your customers, even if they don't pay you.

It doesn't matter if you sell insurance, shoes, or web searches. If you always worry first about the one who uses your products, she will lead you into new business models, new features, and loyalty. Social technology means you can form a relationship with that customer, even if you send your invoices to someone else.

If you worry too much about that "other" customer, he'll go into competition with you, insist on more discounts, drag you down as he goes out of business, or distract you, opening up room for competitors. User customers may have loyalty. Those other customers rarely do.

Complex distribution chains, powerful partners, and advertising subsidies are great. Just don't lose track of who is eating the dog food.

In Japan and Korea, consumers embrace social technology faster than marketers

By Josh Bernoff

I'm just back from three and a half days in Tokyo and two and a half in Seoul. I am always struck, like all travelers, by both what’s similar in other cultures and what’s different. I want to be careful about making generalizations from such a short exposure, but I’d also like to share some impressions with those who might want to look at Asia through my eyes. If you’re Japanese or Korean, or feel you have a good understanding of what’s really going on those countries, I’d welcome your perspective.

I spent my days in Japan speaking with reporters, working with companies, and giving a speech at Ad:Tech’s inaugural Tokyo event (1000 people) and an smaller executive event for Google Japan. As you can see from our recently published data, Japanese consumers are active in social networks and in creating social content, so I expected to see a lot of activity among Japanese companies as well. But in truth, I saw very little corporate activity on these networks. (If you have examples, by all means share them, because I have very few.)

From talking to executives and the 30 or so social media enthusiasts who braved a typhoon to meet me at a Tweetup, I have a theory on why the level of activity is low. Japanese companies are famous for their tendency to look for strong agreement before moving forward, but social applications generate a fair amount of discomfort for companies. In other words, social activity by companies includes risk, and the individuals in Japan who are comfortable with these risks – mostly younger individuals – don’t have much power.

One exception came from Coca-Cola Japan's Shoko Suzuki, a senior marketer who spoke along with me at the Google Japan event. Suzuki-san’s description of Coca-Cola’s online and mobile activities in Japan demonstrated a willingness to try new interactive marketing strategies. Some at the Tweetup suggested that challenges from companies based outside Japan, like Coca-Cola, may get the Japanese marketing executives moving in the social world.

In Seoul, my Forrester colleagues crammed my two days in Seoul with meetings, including my first-ever Groundswell workshop with a non-English speaking group. I was delighted to see such innovation from this Korean company, whose staff included some enthusiastic young women (I saw far more women in positions of influence in Korea than in Japan). These workers embraced the concepts of the groundswell and generated some great ideas – just as I have seen in many workshops in the US and the UK. In my meetings with other Korean companies I saw a real willingness to embrace social applications for business goals, and in my speech to 300 mostly young and enthusiastic Koreans I got some excellent questions about social technologies in non-profits, sponsored conversation, and how to hire social media experts.

Why the embrace of these ideas in South Korea? This nation has the highest rates of broadband penetration anywhere in the world, and an extremely active online population, as you can see from our profile of online South Koreans. The CyWorld online community is the dominant social network, and Naver, the leading Korean search engine, has social elements. I saw many Korean businesspeople willing to challenge authority, and open to taking risks. (Many also speak good English – one young guy said “like” every other sentence; and sure enough, he had spent a couple years in high school in California.) Even in a breakfast talk to a more senior bunch of Korean executives, I saw heads nodding and fielded some excellent questions that indicated real interest.

One other trend I saw in both places: people are discouraged from using the Internet for personal purposes at work. And job-hopping isn’t common, especially in Japan. As a result, work-based social activities (like LinkedIn) just haven’t caught on in these locations. In talking to companies about B2B social networking, I got looks that revealed that they wondered if I came from another planet. This aspect of social applications, at least, is going to get started faster in the US and Europe.

At the last minute, I was invited to spend part of Saturday morning with Kim Hee-Jung the President and CEO of KISA, the Korean government agency in charge of promoting and protecting its Internet infrastructure. I was once again impressed that a woman in her thirties, clearly bright and inquisitive, had risen to such an important government position. As we spoke about social networks, mobile services, and IT in Korea, I extended my favorable impression. Korea’s internet experience is not the same one we have in the US – for one thing, large sites have to verify people’s real names to allow them to participate – but it continues to evolve in a social and mobile direction that may presage the types of changes we’ll see in the US.

The continued high levels of social participation in this part of the world tell me that corporate social innovation won’t be far behind. Even in Japan, once executives see how it’s done, they’re likely to move in a bunch. For companies based elsewhere that do business in Asia, I’d recommend trying new social technology projects in Korea or Japan, where the social world isn’t quite a crowded with corporate social applications ads it’s getting in America. You just might learn something that’s not available anywhere else.