That Interweb

SXSWi: Wikiawesome!

Panel Name: Edit Me! How Gamers are Adopting the Wiki Way

Panelists: Moderator: Jake McKee, Chief Ant Wrangler, Ant's Eye View
               Angelique Shelton, GM of Wikia Gaming, Wikia Inc
               April Burba, Community Mgr, NCsoft
               George Pribul, Lead Admin, WowWiki.com
               Jake McKee, Chief Ant Wrangler, Ant's Eye View

So what’s a wiki? It’s a community-created database of information. That’s it. Nothing more. Really simple. It can also be incredibly powerful as a consumer and brand research tool, a community building tool, and even a marketing tool.

You know Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia created and maintained by the “wisdom of the masses.” You probably use it several times a week. It’s also one of hundreds of wikis: Wowwiki, Lostwiki, Jerichowiki, Conservapedia, Muppetswiki, Biblewiki, etc.

Now you probably have lots of questions, so fire away.

You: I can’t believe anyone would take the time to write a wiki.
Me: Wikis are out there, so someone’s doing it.

You: But why do people do it?
Me: To celebrate their passion with like-minded folks. To be a leader of a community. To build social currency. To feel important. To be proud of something they’ve built. To get noticed. To discuss ideas and develop new ones.

You: I’m just not comfortable with some knucklehead defining my brand.
Me: They already do every time they talk about you, use you, recommend you, or pan you. With a wiki, you can help control how people discuss your brand by giving them a direct line to the horses mouth. They want the 411 on a new product, give them as much as you can. They want the actual names of the colors your product comes in, give ‘em up. The more you give, the more excited your fans get and the more they become guardians of your brand.

You: Doesn’t my current website do the same thing as a wiki?
Me: Nope. Think about this: how long does it take you to update your site? How many layers of review/approvals are involved? What about the costs? Wiki communities never sleep. They make constant updates and can react instantly to new news. Plus, a wiki costs you nothing.

You: What if someone flames us or gets the facts wrong?
Me: The wisdom of the masses to the rescue. Wikis are incredibly self correcting. Remember, the people that “own” the wiki love you. They want to see you succeed. You’re their girl and they’re going to protect you from the bad guys.

You: Say I do this, what’s in it for me?
Me: Well, for starters you get a highly motivated community of advocates. You also get an exhaustive research tool that interested customers can tap for free. Plus, Google searches will hit on your brand more frequently because more content on the web has your name on it. Finally, and possibly most importantly, you can gain market research from the community: demographics, what’s hot/not, what’s working/not, what they think of your rivals, etc.

You: So can any brand do this?
Me: No. You need a passionate community. You need to feel comfortable anointing a few of those people as leaders and relinquishing all control to the community. You need to be able to pledge resources to the community to keep it alive and thriving.

You: Hmmmmm. Interesting.
Me: Imagine the possibilities.

This week's favorite YouTube: Social Gaming Meets Internet Music Project.

This week's selection combines two of my favorite things: World of Warcraft (snarf) and a brilliant idea from a random person.

In 2005, Jonathan Coulton (the random person) quit his job (he was a software writer, naturally) to pursue music. His big idea was to write a song a day and post them online. If you liked the song and downloaded it, he asked for a dollar. Simple and brilliant. Especially, since the songs weren't bad. Most of them have a simple whimsy and a catchy tune.

Then, a guy by the handle of spiffworld started creating videos for Coulton's songs and posting them on YouTube. But these weren't ordinary videos, oh no. They were machinima videos. Basically, machinima is a video created by recording the action in video games like Halo or World of Warcraft. The "actors" are the users characters and thus the director has full control over what they do and how they act.

Spiffworld has posted a dozen videos so far. Coulton has posted tons of songs. And we get to enjoy yet another example of the brilliance, wonder, and power of the internet at helping simple ideas from random individuals find the light of day.

PS: A "codemonkey" is a, wait for it, software writer/programmer. Like they say, write what you know.

PPS: One more video from spiffworld. This one has Zombies!!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjMiDZIY1bM

Facebook makes an oops.

You’ve probably heard all the hoopla about the snazzy new advertising program Facebook developed. You’ve probably also heard that Facebook users revolted, forcing a major change in the program. Seems Facebook forgot the golden rule of social networking, “Do unto me only what I ask done unto me.” Cheers to the power of the people!

McCann CEO is my hero!

(CEO not pictured here. These are other Ad Tech heroes. Or not.)

Nick Brien, Universal McCann CEO, gave the keynote address at this years Ad Tech and spoke truth to power. His comments are a must read. In sum:

1) It's not about new media, it's about new marketing.
2) Legacy thinking is bad. Bad for clients, bad for agencies.
3) Brands need to be destinations and experiences, thus consumer insights must be better.
4) Consumer generated content is a powerful thing
5) New model calls for collaboration between media companies, agencies, and brands.
6) New model is scary. Don't fear it, love it.

From Brien's mouth to the ears of clients and agencies everywhere.

See the summary of Brien's address in AdAge.

NOTE: Here's the podcast of Brien's keynote address.

Play with my widget

Once upon a time, widgets lived only in business management classes as fictional manufactured items. Now they exist in the real world and are a multimillion dollar business.

The September issue of Business 2.0 has a great article about how widgets are driving the Facebook economy. I suggest reading it but the gist is that widgets can be created by anyone and money can be made from them. They can be fun, silly things or hard core e-commerce. The one thing the most successful widgets have in common is that they tap into the “social graph” — the web of connections between users and their friends.

Why a widget is a good idea, or how to sell a widget to your client?
1) Users voluntarily put your brand on their page, validating it, and sharing it with their friends.
2) It’s the ultimate form of online word-of-mouth
3) One time production cost and then minimal residual costs since there’s no media to buy.
4) Gives the user an intimate brand experience that general advertising can’t
5) Widgets spread virally so there’s no need to advertise them

Not to toot my own horn, but I did a MySpace widget for Chili’s Grill & Bar. It took an awful lot of convincing to get them to agree to it but it’s been a huge success.

The Chili’s Chalkboard for MySpace cost less than $20,000 to produce and has generated more than 4,000,000 impressions in six months (the widget launched 5/4/07). More importantly about 90% of those impressions are from boards on personal MySpace pages and not on the Chili’s page.

Widgets can be a powerful tool and you can create one for almost any client. Check out appaholic.com for the most popular apps and to see their measurement analytics.

UPDATE
As of 11/4/07 the Chalkboard widget has had 5,303,196 unique visits. There are now 29,126 unique boards on peoples' pages.

UPDATE
As of 12/9/07 the Chalkboard widget has had 8,826,575 unique visits. There are now 45,558 unique boards on peoples' pages.

UPDATE
As of 2/8/08 the Chalkboard widget has had 12,428,000 unique visits. There are now 59,661 unique boards on peoples' pages.

I'm a Warcaft Nerd. Give me a Toyota.

8,000,000 World of Warcraft players saw this spot last week and thought, "Cool. Toyota rules." Will it sell trucks? Maybe, maybe not. Do people that don't play Warcraft "get it"? Most likely not. But one thing is for sure, the strategy behind this spot is brilliant.

1. 8,000,000 people play WoW world wide, about 2,000,000 in North America, and are talking about this spot.
2. WoW players are fanatical about their game and now associate Toyota with their fanaticism
3. By nailing the fun and feel of WoW, Toyota has validated the game and the gamers. We're now cool.
4. And as the boys over at AmericanCopywriter already pointed out, the spot does double duty for two brands.

The spot has taken off on YouTube and has over 1,300,000 runs. That's 1.3 million free impressions that consumers actively sought out and paid attention to. Let's see a traditional media buy do that.

I personally like the spot but ShaggyDA, my Level 70 Night Elf Rogue, 

thinks it's the greatest thing since he picked up his "Whistling Sword" while questing.

Snarf!

MySpace — It’s not just for pedophiles.

You’ve heard all the bad press about sex perverts and online stalkers using MySpace and Facebook as their new digital playground. The good news is that of the tens of millions of people on social networks, very few are pervs. The bad news is that the reason pervs are trolling social networks is the same reason you should be, too. It’s where the target is.

Social networks are the old-time barbershops of the Internet. They’re where people go to hang out, chat, share gossip, make friends, and kill time. And more important, people are showing up in staggering numbers: 200 million plus MySpace members(1); 39 million Facebook users(2); 14 million LinkedIn users(3); and close to 1 billion pictures posted on Flickr(4), to name just four networks.

Now you might be thinking, “MySpace is for kids. My target is 35-45 year olds in $90k households.” Here are a few reasons you need to get over that way of thinking:

1. Over 50% of all social network visitors are over 35(5).
2. When those “kids” finally hit 35 they will have grown up in a world where social networks are a part of their core experience — miss out now and you’ll be irrelevant then.
3. Marketing on social networks can be dirt cheap.
4. It gives your customers a chance to interact with your brand on a personal level.

You can’t possibly expect to reach these social networkers if you haven’t typed a mile on their keyboards. That’s why you need to immediately create MySpace, Facebook, and LinkedIn profiles. You should probably do the same with Twitter, Second Life, Flickr, 43Things, and every other social networking site you’ve ever heard of. And you can’t just build a profile and forget about it. It’s not enough to know social networks exist, you have to be familiar with them. You have to put some effort into pimping out your pages. Play with the different widgets. Find all your friends and add them to your page. Explore the differences and personalities of the networks. Oh yes, they have personalities.

There’s a way to find success with social networks. If the pervs can do it, so can you.

List of Social Network websites

(1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MySpace (2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook#Statistics (3) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linkedin (4) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flickr (5) http://www.comscore.com/press/release.asp?press=1019