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2008-07-31 - TechCrunch50 Regular Decision - Final Notice

Update: I’ve updated the blog with another post about the company that was rejected - The non-profit TechCrunch50 doesn’t want

Dear TechCrunch50 Candidate:

We are sorry to let you know that your company was not selected as a finalist for the TechCrunch50 conference. As you know, we are only able to select a very, very small percentage of the outstanding applications we received this year.

Thanks again for your support and we hope we may still see you this September 8-10 in San Francisco.

Sincerely,

–Jason, Heather & Michael
and the TechCrunch50 Team


2008-07-26 - PodCamp Boston 3: Smart Social Media Marketing

Social Media Marketing Panel on Flickr
Smart Social Media Marketing Panel Discussion - Greg Verdino, Doug Haslam, Adam Broitman, and Philip Robertson

Greg Verdino on Twitter: @gregverdino
Doug Haslam on Twitter: @DougH
Adam Broitman on Twitter: @AdamBroitman
Philip Robertson on Twitter: @BritRock

Description: It’s no secret that more and more marketers are looking for ways to engage consumers directly through social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, podcasts and the blogosphere. What remains elusive, however, is a set of smart guiding principles for participating in ways that are authentic, add value for the community and ultimately benefit the brand. In this interactive panel discussion, I’ll lead a conversation with three social media insiders who are also experienced marketers that have tapped into the power of conversation to build brands, stimulate positive awareness through word-of-mouth marketing and deliver superior, real-time customer support. We’ll use firsthand experience and practical examples to help attendees understand how to get it right, how to avoid messing up, and what to do if something goes wrong.

To start, the panel asks a few questions. Is web marketing a PR thing? Is it something that the web team should be handling? Who makes for better social media marketing types? It’s a matter of your discipline. Adam Broitman says that traditional marketers don’t address the social challenge presented by social media. There are two sides to the puzzle and one of those sides is the interactivity. A traditional PR person isn’t prepared to handle that.

Philip Robertson said that social media has demanded a lot more transparency from companies. People want to be more engaged, but also have transparency from the companies that they are being social with for a sense of authenticity. It’s not as simple as making two lsits of PR people, online and traditional. There are people exist in both. Instead, it’s a list of people who are engaged in social media and those who are not.

Adam asked the question of the crowd of who thought that search engine marketing is PR. I think people raised their hands only because they knew they should.It’s a good thing they did because how people find our companies is PR, and that includes search engines.

An audience member was curious about who should manage the people inside the company? Philip answered that you have to work to control the message, but you also can’t be too controlling. It’s best to put a set of guidelines in place and let the people in the company be social. Sometimes something slips through the cracks, but that’s what will happen when people want to get their message out.

In terms of control, you could argue that you want to take the point of view of the Federation, not the Borg. The Borg need to be told what to do, but the Federation is given a message and is allowed to think for themselves when the opportunity arises.

Back to the panel, Doug Haslam points out that the embargo is changing. As mentioned earlier, things slip out because the client is the one producing the content now. If the CEO really wants to talk about a new product that hasn’t been revealed, then they are going to talk about it. Your job is to make sure that they are getting the message out properly and facilitating their desires to do so. Also, the guy from the agency isn’t the invisible man behind the curtain any longer. As someone from an agency, you need to figure out how to disclose who is a client of yours without turning off to your message too.

Greg Verdino brought up the point that someone needs to manage the policy within the company. At Crayon, they’ve found that the client knows that people inside the company are creating content, but they still look to the outside for people to come in and create the guidelines. Typically, it’s not a traditional agency because at this point, many of the big shops just don’t get this stuff.

An audience member asked about the “Add This” button as a good thing to have on a site. Greg reminded everyone that while it’s a positive thing to have, it’s not a social strategy. The strategy is thinking about what the content is that people will find relevant enough to distribute through their personal channels.

When asked if anyone has defined social media marketing, Adam responded saying that the technology is just catching up to enable the conversations and interactions that we are seeing now. It’s all part of a more immersive web. Immersive environments have always existed and the web has always been social, but now the social aspect is heightened. The definition of that is being able to enter those spaces without being offensive and adding to the value of the conversation. It’s not a defined definition, but it’s about listening to the environments and making relevant noise. The panel did use the word “noise” to describe their message, so they do understand the volume of conversations on the web can get to the point of noise. I think that realization is an important one. Philip notes that it’s difficult to know what “getting it” actually means.

The panel attempted to define what they previously said had no definition. Advertising is buying access to someone else’s media, PR is having people write about you in their media and social media marketing is creating your own content and delivering it to an audience directly. There were some discussions about this definition being incorrect later on during the weekend, but that’s how it was defined during the panel discussion.

But is social media marketing by the panel’s definition much different from when companies used to be the sole sponsor of a televisions how and would dictate the content? To some degree that might be correct, but people also don’t see advertising as valued content anymore. Greg said that it’s a matter of earned attention. Television used to be the only game of a Friday night, but now the game has changed. Now, we are in a state of earned attention.

The audience was curious about coming into a company as an agency and intimidating those people inside the company who would otherwise be creating content and bring social. Philip said it’s not the companies job to create that brand and job for the people inside. It’s up to the team that is in charge of the marketing to let everyone have a chance. An example of that is Comcast Cares on Twitter. The social media marketer is best suited to educate, motivate and show how the best practices have influenced communities. Doug pointed out that there is a difference between being controlling about what is said and telling people what to do and giving them a call to action.

Another audience member asked what the difference between a social media press release and a traditional press release is. Doug said it all comes down to allowing people to share and make it social. You want the wire services to integrate RSS feeds and comments as well as multimedia, making it possible for the audience to talk back to you. Greg said that bloggers as a group might be the laziest people on the web. Make it easy for them with easy to access information, link rolls, bullet points and giving everything someone would need to put together a post in less than 20 minutes. Doug pointed out that it’s not just bloggers, it’s everyone who is lazy. Greg hopes that in a few years no one uses the term social media press release (amen!) It’s common sense to have all of this information available anyway.

Greg asked the panel what best practices people should be following. Philip said the best way to engage with the audience is to let the audience do the talking for your brand. Engage the audience by making sure they can push the message of your brand and let them talk about it. Doug reminds everyone to read the publication and posts before you send a pitch. You want to give them something they can use and something they would want to listen to. The key to being social is listening.

Another audience question was about VRM, which is vendor relationship management. Adam said that the idea of CRM is dying and VRM is emerging. Doug is a heavy Twitter user and he hasn’t seen anyone doing it really well. Comcast and Zappos a have people on Twitter, but it’s a small number of individuals behind the accounts, they have yet to seriously embrace it. But when you are inside the company, it’s notable that the people who should be the ones to start doing this are the people who would already be doing it anyway. Frank at ComcastCares is an example of this. Greg said it’s all about mindset and where your audience lives. Dell’s Ideastorm works as a Digg clone for ideas because Dell’s audience lives online. Starbucks’ My Starbucks Idea doesn’t work on their website because the Starbucks audience lives in the Starbucks stores, not on their website. Starbucks needs to be social primarily through their baristas, not through social media. It goes back to VRM, because if you can put your complains online, then you can manage your vendors like that. An example of this is the site Get Satisfaction.

An audience member asked about microblogging as social media. They were reminded that it’s just adding another channel, but like “Add This” it doesn’t constitute social media. It’s still about listening.

On a site like Yelp, each customer has the opportunity to be an advocate, but companies don’t always realize this. An audience member had a negative experience with a company on Yelp when they responded negatively to feedback and then was slow to fix the issue at hand. Instead of turning the commenter into an advocate, we are hearing a tale of woe about this at a conference. A great way to speed the process up when dealing with companies that are moving slow would be to post their letters, similar to how the Pirate Bay posts their cease and desist letters.

The panel answered a question about control. Specifically, what to say to a client that thinks they are losing control of their content with all of the social aspects of the web. The real answer is that they never really had control to begin with. There’s a notion of control, but that’s a fallacy. In reality it’s a partnership between the producer and the reader. The real way to regain control is to collaborate with the user instead of trying to lock them down.

And finally, how do we know if it’s working? There’s no concrete way. You could use Google Trends, or a Twitter search to find keywords. Also you could use technorati or Topix.net, but there’s no clear answer.


2008-07-25 - Podcamp Boston 3: Professional Audio Techniques

Professional Audio Techniques; Taking your Podcast to the next level.
by David Fisher (www.whatisnoise.com)

David Fisher on Twitter: @Tibbon

Got a Podcast? You know the basics, now come learn to do things faster, more efficiently and best of all how to make it sound more professional.

David Fisher’s presentation was a list of 12 items for experienced podcasters to improve their audio. This wasn’t for beginners, as you needed to have a basic understand of audio to fully get the ideas that he was putting forward.

  1. Quality microphones last a lifetime
    You should consider using condenser microphones when possible, but plenty of dynamic mics are available that are good too. Amongst those are the Electrovoice RE-20 and the Shure SM-7B. Both are used in broadcast studios and considered stand microphones to use. There are bargain microphones that are good available, but you run the risk of getting what you pay for. This happens specifically with tube microphones. Poor build quality and poor parts are used to make the microphones so cheap. There are techniques to know and learn as well. Specifically the proximity effect was mentioned. The proximity effect has an effect on the low end of the recording the closer you get to the microphone. The closer you are, the more bass comes through.
  2. Use a hardware compressor
    A hardware compressor is preferred to a software compressor. Compressors help deal with dynamic range of the audio, and putting it into the signal chain as a hardware compressor, you are dealing with the dynamic range before the sound is recorded. To take a step back, compressors level out the sound specifically reducing the peaks in the audio. The downside to using a hardware compressor is that they could be difficult to use while field recordings, they can be expensive and once you compress something while recording it, you can’t uncompress it if you get it wrong. David suggests FMR Audio’s Really Nice Compressor for a moderately priced compressor.
  3. Preamps matter
    Every recorded signal uses a preamp from the Flip camera to the highest end recording board that exists. Each preamp adds certain details and nuances to the recording. When only recording voices, you don’t have to go overboard with purchasing a preamp. There are deals to be had with preamps like microphones, but the same dangers lurk. David had a nice food analogy when it comes to preamps. Picture your recording as a piece of food. You can cook it many different ways. There’s a BBQ on a charcoal pit, or there’s the microwave. Each different way you cook/record, you’ll add certain characteristics to the food/recording. Choose wisely.

    4. David Fisher presenting at PodCamp Boston 3

  4. Do not over deaden your room
    There’s a difference between making a room quiet and making a room dead. When you put acoustic treatments on the walls of a room, you aren’t quieting noise you are deadening the room, specifically the reflections in the room. Some treatments might be needed in a room, but you don’t need to kill all reflections. Symphony hall in Boston is arguably the nicest sounding room on the planet, and the room is not dead. As a matter of fact, it’s quite alive with reflections. For an example of a dead room, go to your closet and speak while it is full of jackets. That’s a dead room.
  5. Workflow is king
    Make sure to do it right the first time. “I’ll fix it in the mix” is an excuse for poor recording and it will take you longer. Keep extra sets of supplies around like batteries or SD cards. If it doesn’t get recorded because you weren’t prepared, then the sound quality doesn’t matter because it doesn’t exist.
  6. Get a second set of monitors
    David suggets getting one full range set of speakers and one consumer level set of speakers. It always makes sense to listen to your work on something your consumer will listen on. Switches exist so you can easily switch the sound back and forth. Personally, I don’t think that you need a full range set of speakers. One set of bookshelf speakers and one set of crappy speakers will probably be what you need. David suggest brands like Genelec or Yamaha for the full range and speakers like NS-10s for the consumer speakers, but I suggest something like the Audioengine A2W or A2B for the high end speakers and whatever you can buy at CVS for the low end stuff.
  7. Use a pop filter
    Pop filters assist with quick bursts of air. It helps with plosives (what’s a plosive?) Metal pop filters work better and are easier to clean, but are also more expensive.
  8. Do not overdo anything
    Too much of anything can be bad when it comes to recordings. Don’t put too much gain on something or you might clip the signal and create distortion. Also, if you over EQ something, there are aural side effects that are difficult to predict, specially when it comes to compressing the file to be an mp3. A general rule is that if you need to turn something all the way up, there is most likely something wrong. An exception to this are the recommended microphones from earlier. The SM7B and RE-20 microphones are not that sensitive and you might need to turn them up almost all the way to get a decent signal from them.

    9. David Fisher presenting at PodCamp Boston 3
    photo by gomem

  9. Room tone
    What is Room Tone? Record room tome for about 45 seconds to fill in potential audio gaps in the mix. Room tone can help smooth transitions or if you gate the sound too heavily, room tone can help fill in the silent gaps between phrases. Again, this is something that you should address before the recording, not afterwards. If it’s possible, make the room more quiet instead of processing the sound even more after the fact.
  10. Mix into a compressor
    David suggests a high threshold, low gain make up, fast attack, slow release and a high compression rate nearly to the point of limiting. Did all that go over your head? I’ll translate from audio geek to human. The compressor should be set so that it doesn’t kick in too low. It shouldn’t be working all of the time, just with the louder points of the speaker’s voice. When compressing, don’t turn the gain on the compressor too high, because that’s an indication that you might be doing something wrong. No signal should need a whole lot of gain after being compressed, but it might need some. The compressor should be quick to reduce the speakers voice when it is reducing the volume, but it should also slowly bring the volume back in as to not sound too unnatural. When compressing, make sure that the rate of compression is high, so you don’t distort or clip your mix. By compressing it so heavily, you can make sure that the voices on the recording are audible the entire time.
  11. Don’t recompress mastered audio
    David rick rolled us to start this out. But he does make a point. When a musician finishes a song, they compress it pretty heavily. When you bring that song into your podcast, and compress your podcast you run the risk of destroying the sound of the music. It’s not the absolute worst thing in the world, but it’s something to keep an eye and an ear out for.
  12. Find a good audio dealer
    Working with a dealer will allow for easy returns and most dealers will allow trusted customers to borrow equipment for periods of time. Another point is that most audio equipment will cost exactly the same everywhere. Instead of looking for a deal, you should look for good service and a good relationship. While David suggests using someone local, I’ve had great experiences with Sweetwater in the past. I won’t go on further about them, but they are a reliable company and their tech support is great. If you do decide to buy anything from Sweetwater, tell them that you referred by Walt Ribeiro. Walt’s a great guy and turned me on to Sweetwater.

After the list was complete David took some questions from the audience. The first question was about tracking down hum. The answer given was to simplify your audio chain in order to figure out which piece of gear it is that’s giving the hum. Check that audio cables aren’t running in parallel with power cables, as that can introduce hum. If you can, you want to make sure everything is plugged into the same circuit as well so any voltage variations one piece of gear gets, they all get. You can regulate the voltage with a surge protector, universal power supply or a power conditioner.

The second question came from someone who is doing a tour of baseball parks and is concerned about the crowd noise causing digital distortion in the recordings. David suggested looking for a small compressor to put into the signal chain to reduce the signal. You can also record at a low level and amplify it later. In terms of recording in this situation, it’s better to record low then to record high.


2008-07-25 - Podcamp Boston 3: How to Grab, Hold and Grow a Loyal Audience

How to Grab, Hold and Grow a Loyal Audience: Makeing Your Content So Compelling They Keep Coming Back by Stever Robbins.

Stever Robbin’s Podcast, the Get It Done Guy

To start off the presentation, Stever mentions there will be handouts at the end. There’s a reason that he will give the handouts at the end and he’ll tell you why later.

As people, we are drawn to points of information that doesn’t supply us with actual information but instead focus on other people. This is prevalent by looking at the magazines near the checkout line at your nearest supermarket. The most easily engaging content is about people. For instance, Stever brought up Angelina Jolie’s children. He knew that she was not only pregnant, but having twins, and they were spilt sex twins. As a matter of fact, most of the people in the room knew that too on a “raise your hands” poll. It doesn’t matter how badly you want to forget that, because it’s already burned into your brain. The Pitt/Jolie kids are a on two punch that happens with the mainstream media. Not only are the stories people focused, but you see them everywhere. To quote Stever, “the human brain remembers frequency, not duration.” He also said is applies to dating too, but this is a podcast conference after all, isn’t it?

The biggest drawing point of your show might not be your main focus. It could be a specific part of the show, you or humor. If you can make someone laugh while getting your point across, your point will stick better. This is the case for most of the Quick and Dirty Tips podcasts. Stever also mentioned that the tip of the day is something that speaks directly to people because it is a call to action. It’s something that people can respond to easily. The tip of the day is at the end of the show, which makes people listen tot he whole thing. This is like the handouts he spoke about at the beginning, because if you want them, you have to be there at the end of the talk.

Speaking of the handouts, the next tip is related to them. When you do have something like a handout or an ebook, make sure you leave breadcrumbs that lead back to your own site. Stever has included all the information yoyu could need for his podcast and site on the handouts. It’s all a matter of repetition, not duration. It’s actually modality that he’s referring to. Podcasts, pdfs, website, handouts, business cards and any other way that you can get your name and info out there.

Switching gears, he also spoke about your voice during thee recordings. In the Quick and Dirty Tips network, everything is scripted. At first, he had a hard time delivering the script naturally when he was reading. It’s not a matter of reading the script, it’s a matter of communicating the script. An old voice over artist trick is to stand up and loosen up your body when reading the script. Act it out and use your body language to get your point across. Your delivery will be much more natural if you act naturally while reading it.

the first audience question was in regards to traction. It’s a podcast about flickr and despite having a built in community, there’s little to no word of mouth about the podcast and the audience is not growing. Stever said that if you are having difficulty getting people to listen to your show, it’s all about the marketing. What would make you personally tell a friend about a podcast? Usefullness. The sub-title of the show “Tips to work less and play more” indicates fun. Who doesn’t want to play more?

Also, is it fun to listen to? For years Stever took improv classes. Not to become a comic, but to meet people and learn to be quicker during conversations. He also suggests the book “Stand Up” by Judy Carter.

Speaking of engaging your audience, Stever did something extremely smart if he knew it or not. When bringing up the book, he didn’t mention the title or the last name of the author. Instead he asked the audience to Google the book. He knew it was about standup and he also knew the first name of the author but that was it. Everyone with a laptop was racing to have the info.

The seconds question was that the word “podcast” turns some people away (the luddites mostly). Stever said that it’s not about the medium, but it’s about getting people to your site. The people who don’t know the words iPod or podcast are never going to learn them, so forget trying to get them to subscribe. Get them to your site and keep them coming back. The initial way you get exposure is important. Look for natural outlets and people with similar interests.

Success is a 2% response rate in traditional marketing, so it’s a numbers game. Get yourself in front of as many people as possible and try to get that 2% or more. It’s hard work get good numbers, so be prepared for it.

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