Tretakoff Musings
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
When Brands Become People
One of the interesting side effects of brands using social networking to communicate with their customers are the humanization of the formerly faceless brands. As NASA found by using Twitter to let the Mars Rover communicate with interested parties, people form an emotional attachment to what were formerly cold and lifeless objects. But what happens when those are brands, come to life?
The results are fascinating. Take a look at the "tweets" today, left. That's a conversation between, ostensibly, Southwest Airlines and JetBlue. Both are active on Twitter, letting folks know of new routes, delays, and new features. Both are typical of Twitter, representing themselves as the brand, not as individuals of that brand. Thus, to the follower, while you "know" there's a human behind it, the brand is the voice. For that reason, the voice tends to be reflective of the brand: SouthwestAir is fun loving, chipper, and relentlessly upbeat; JetBlue is suave, slightly amusingly snarky, and very much emphasizing on new features.
In this case, and it's the first I have seen, we have one "brand" directly talking to another. And not just another company; a direct competitor! And it's a public discussion for all who follow either to enjoy. This completely breaks down the walls around corporate communication and adds a whole fascinating new dynamic.
Imagine a customer who misses their JetBlue flight: they tweet to @JetBlue, asking for help. @JetBlue, replies, getting some details, finds the customer is in a market that they know Southwest Air services more regularly. @JetBlue tweets to @SouthwestAir, asking for some help to get the customer rebooked. @SouthwestAir finds it, makes it happen, and replies to both @JetBlue and the customer. Boom, the customer is rebooked on Southwest Air, having a GREAT impression of both airlines, before they even get to the airport.
There are other companies who take a different approach, allowing individual faces on their brands. Comcast Frank is one of the most famous, having been profiled multiple times in mainstream news. Frank's approach is very different: his Twitter usage is proactive, and his manner is very much different than either Comcast's brand marketing or the customer's expectations of customer service. In this case, because he's Frank, you think of him as an individual first, and a representative of the company second; as a result, personal interactions are far better and have more civil tones.
Both are great examples of how social media is transforming the corporate to customer communication landscape. It's fascinating to see the unexpected and delightful evolution. Part of me never wants to see the folks behind @JetBlue and @SouthwestAir. I actually would prefer a picture of two individuals meeting in an airport bar, with a big logo of each brand over their faces; it's how I want to think of them from now on.
One of the interesting side effects of brands using social networking to communicate with their customers are the humanization of the formerly faceless brands. As NASA found by using Twitter to let the Mars Rover communicate with interested parties, people form an emotional attachment to what were formerly cold and lifeless objects. But what happens when those are brands, come to life?The results are fascinating. Take a look at the "tweets" today, left. That's a conversation between, ostensibly, Southwest Airlines and JetBlue. Both are active on Twitter, letting folks know of new routes, delays, and new features. Both are typical of Twitter, representing themselves as the brand, not as individuals of that brand. Thus, to the follower, while you "know" there's a human behind it, the brand is the voice. For that reason, the voice tends to be reflective of the brand: SouthwestAir is fun loving, chipper, and relentlessly upbeat; JetBlue is suave, slightly amusingly snarky, and very much emphasizing on new features.
In this case, and it's the first I have seen, we have one "brand" directly talking to another. And not just another company; a direct competitor! And it's a public discussion for all who follow either to enjoy. This completely breaks down the walls around corporate communication and adds a whole fascinating new dynamic.
Imagine a customer who misses their JetBlue flight: they tweet to @JetBlue, asking for help. @JetBlue, replies, getting some details, finds the customer is in a market that they know Southwest Air services more regularly. @JetBlue tweets to @SouthwestAir, asking for some help to get the customer rebooked. @SouthwestAir finds it, makes it happen, and replies to both @JetBlue and the customer. Boom, the customer is rebooked on Southwest Air, having a GREAT impression of both airlines, before they even get to the airport.
There are other companies who take a different approach, allowing individual faces on their brands. Comcast Frank is one of the most famous, having been profiled multiple times in mainstream news. Frank's approach is very different: his Twitter usage is proactive, and his manner is very much different than either Comcast's brand marketing or the customer's expectations of customer service. In this case, because he's Frank, you think of him as an individual first, and a representative of the company second; as a result, personal interactions are far better and have more civil tones.Both are great examples of how social media is transforming the corporate to customer communication landscape. It's fascinating to see the unexpected and delightful evolution. Part of me never wants to see the folks behind @JetBlue and @SouthwestAir. I actually would prefer a picture of two individuals meeting in an airport bar, with a big logo of each brand over their faces; it's how I want to think of them from now on.
Labels: business, social networks, Twitter
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Twhirl: One Status Message App to Rule Them All
Mashable breaks the news of a powerful new update to the Adobe AIR-powered Twhirl client today. Among the features of the upcoming preview release are the ability to post messages to Ping.fm (allowing simultaneous status updates to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.), as well as the ability to see any tweets you are even mentioned in, regardless of where in the message you are.
Twhirl is a desktop client that allows you to both post and monitor your Twitter feeds. Among its advantages are the ability to automatically give long URLs the TinyURL treatment, automatically post photos to Twitter, and handle direct messages and replies with the deftness of an IM program. I've been using it for months as my preferred desktop client, primarily because of the range of features, as well as the nice UI, but with these improved features, it goes well beyond a nice to have to a real winner. I'd like to see an easy way to automatically exclude messages posting to Ping.fm when common Twitter conventions are used (such as "@username" or "#CES2009"), but I'm thrilled for the features I see here!
Sign up to get notified of the new release here.
Mashable breaks the news of a powerful new update to the Adobe AIR-powered Twhirl client today. Among the features of the upcoming preview release are the ability to post messages to Ping.fm (allowing simultaneous status updates to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.), as well as the ability to see any tweets you are even mentioned in, regardless of where in the message you are.Twhirl is a desktop client that allows you to both post and monitor your Twitter feeds. Among its advantages are the ability to automatically give long URLs the TinyURL treatment, automatically post photos to Twitter, and handle direct messages and replies with the deftness of an IM program. I've been using it for months as my preferred desktop client, primarily because of the range of features, as well as the nice UI, but with these improved features, it goes well beyond a nice to have to a real winner. I'd like to see an easy way to automatically exclude messages posting to Ping.fm when common Twitter conventions are used (such as "@username" or "#CES2009"), but I'm thrilled for the features I see here!
Sign up to get notified of the new release here.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
15 Seconds of Fame
Mashable has an article up about the top 40 brands that are using Twitter, and who's behind them. I'm reading along, and, with a start, I see the image to the right there, in the article. Yep, Southwest Air was retweeting my tweet, and apparently Mashable captured it for posterity. ;-)
By the way, the tweet was in response to Southwest's question if there had indeed been a Southwest Airlines jet on a recent episode of "24." I had noticed the similarity myself, so when I saw the tweet, I was able to quickly respond.
Feel free to follow me in all of my fame here. ;-)
Mashable has an article up about the top 40 brands that are using Twitter, and who's behind them. I'm reading along, and, with a start, I see the image to the right there, in the article. Yep, Southwest Air was retweeting my tweet, and apparently Mashable captured it for posterity. ;-)By the way, the tweet was in response to Southwest's question if there had indeed been a Southwest Airlines jet on a recent episode of "24." I had noticed the similarity myself, so when I saw the tweet, I was able to quickly respond.
Feel free to follow me in all of my fame here. ;-)
Labels: Twitter
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
An Interview With the Mars Lander
One of the more innovative uses of Twitter has been by NASA and JPL: they established a Twitter account for the Mars Lander, Phoenix. What was so revolutionary was the use of the first person perspective: Phoenix was "tweeting" as it made its discoveries. As a result, the Twitterati became enamored of it, and treated it like a friend. Thus, as Phoenix's mission ended and the Martian winter robbed it of it's necessary light, it tweeted it's quasi-final message, as seen in the picture to the left.
One of the more innovative uses of Twitter has been by NASA and JPL: they established a Twitter account for the Mars Lander, Phoenix. What was so revolutionary was the use of the first person perspective: Phoenix was "tweeting" as it made its discoveries. As a result, the Twitterati became enamored of it, and treated it like a friend. Thus, as Phoenix's mission ended and the Martian winter robbed it of it's necessary light, it tweeted it's quasi-final message, as seen in the picture to the left.And today, we get a glimpse behind the curtain of the wonderful "voice" of Phoenix, and how she came to develop the character, as a combination of whimsy, timing, and the limitations of Twitter. An absolutely fascinating read.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Melodic Birdsong
Twitter continues to impress me. Not the service, per se, but the ways it is used, how it's connected, and so on. For instance:
- Want to track a package? Sure, you can use the web, and "pull" from a page to find out the status of your package. But what if you could get a Twitter message (a "tweet") at every step of the package's journey? You'd know if you need to be home to accept a package the next day, without having to remember to visit a webpage in advance. Just send a Direct Message to TrackThis with the tracking number (any carrier) and a name you want to refer to the package by, and you'll get updates on every movement of the package.
- The Bay Area is famous for the weather phenomena of microclimates. Up in San Rafael, for instance, I can get an update every 30 minutes on the weather.
- Twitter is actually useful for discovering new people, as well. For instance, MistyKhan saw I was struggling with some Microsoft Outlook issues, and offered her help, unsolicited, along with pointing me to a fabulous resource for more, her own site.
- Courtesy of tweets from the same MistyKhan, check out TwitterLocal. Type in your ZIP code, choose a radius, and see all the people nearby twittering. Fun to see how common the ailments are from folks as the heat warms us all up!
- Ever wished there was a direct connection to a resource at an airline who you could reach out to and ask for help, or get information on possible delays or specials as they come up? JetBlue has embraced Twitter with a passion for just that.
- And, of course, what better way to know the hottest daily online deal than by having Woot let you know via Twitter.
All this, and free? Tweet, tweet!
- Want to track a package? Sure, you can use the web, and "pull" from a page to find out the status of your package. But what if you could get a Twitter message (a "tweet") at every step of the package's journey? You'd know if you need to be home to accept a package the next day, without having to remember to visit a webpage in advance. Just send a Direct Message to TrackThis with the tracking number (any carrier) and a name you want to refer to the package by, and you'll get updates on every movement of the package.
- The Bay Area is famous for the weather phenomena of microclimates. Up in San Rafael, for instance, I can get an update every 30 minutes on the weather.
- Twitter is actually useful for discovering new people, as well. For instance, MistyKhan saw I was struggling with some Microsoft Outlook issues, and offered her help, unsolicited, along with pointing me to a fabulous resource for more, her own site.
- Courtesy of tweets from the same MistyKhan, check out TwitterLocal. Type in your ZIP code, choose a radius, and see all the people nearby twittering. Fun to see how common the ailments are from folks as the heat warms us all up!
- Ever wished there was a direct connection to a resource at an airline who you could reach out to and ask for help, or get information on possible delays or specials as they come up? JetBlue has embraced Twitter with a passion for just that.
- And, of course, what better way to know the hottest daily online deal than by having Woot let you know via Twitter.
All this, and free? Tweet, tweet!
Thursday, March 06, 2008
One Site To Rule Them All
All right, I'll admit it: I'm confused. In this last week, I have watch the "new media" bubble uncontrollably about two things:
- Sites that can monitor you and your friends' activities on all of the "cool" sites, like Flickr, Twitter, etc., and publish them in a feed.
- Google Calendar sync with Outlook.
In all of the mentions, barely a word was spoken about Plaxo. Why? Plaxo has been doing both of these things for quite some time, and has an important advantage over Netvibes, Spokeo, etc.: it already integrates with your address book, and gives users ancillary benefits of keeping their address books up to date.
Maybe it's the desperate air of "for sale" that was the reason; maybe it's Plaxo's old "bac'n" problem, but whatever it is, it's unreal. Why would you want to set up all of these additional sites, then convince your contacts to join them, then convince them to sync their online social life, when you can offer them one membership, with Google Calendar sync, and so much more?
Man, I hope whomever pumped the $ into Plaxo can see the goldmine they have.
All right, I'll admit it: I'm confused. In this last week, I have watch the "new media" bubble uncontrollably about two things:- Sites that can monitor you and your friends' activities on all of the "cool" sites, like Flickr, Twitter, etc., and publish them in a feed.
- Google Calendar sync with Outlook.
In all of the mentions, barely a word was spoken about Plaxo. Why? Plaxo has been doing both of these things for quite some time, and has an important advantage over Netvibes, Spokeo, etc.: it already integrates with your address book, and gives users ancillary benefits of keeping their address books up to date.
Maybe it's the desperate air of "for sale" that was the reason; maybe it's Plaxo's old "bac'n" problem, but whatever it is, it's unreal. Why would you want to set up all of these additional sites, then convince your contacts to join them, then convince them to sync their online social life, when you can offer them one membership, with Google Calendar sync, and so much more?
Man, I hope whomever pumped the $ into Plaxo can see the goldmine they have.
Labels: Plaxo, social networks, Twitter, Web 2.0
Friday, February 29, 2008
Outlook Help, Via Twitter
I've written many a time about how I hate Outlook. Today, I struggled for hours to get Outlook even to start. I vented my frustration on Twitter, and, much to my surprise and delight, a Twitter person decided to point me to a great set of tips: Arrow Tips. Now THAT is the power of the Web to deliver solutions!
Now, excuse me, I'm back to figuring out how to reduce a 4GB Outlook Archive file...
I've written many a time about how I hate Outlook. Today, I struggled for hours to get Outlook even to start. I vented my frustration on Twitter, and, much to my surprise and delight, a Twitter person decided to point me to a great set of tips: Arrow Tips. Now THAT is the power of the Web to deliver solutions!Now, excuse me, I'm back to figuring out how to reduce a 4GB Outlook Archive file...
Labels: social networks, Software, Twitter
Saturday, December 15, 2007
Spokeo: Pulse, without Plaxo
As you may have noticed, I've been become more and more fascinated with the evolution of Web 2.0 to harness the "cloud" of the Web to make the online world more relevant. In other words, using the web to enhance the social nature of interactions. This hearkens back to my early days as a BBS sysop, and actually has the potential to make the web ubiquitous. I've been quite congratulatory towards Plaxo for recognizing one of the key tenets of this, the ability to automatically discover interactions, and display and classify them, in the form of Plaxo's Pulse, which gives you a "news feed" of what your connections are doing, all over the web. I've also mentioned that Plaxo sometimes, rightly or wrongly, gets a bad rap as being a Facebook imitator or worse, but I have to tell you, the Pulse is addictive: like all good "push" applications, it keeps you up to date on everything. But what if you could have Pulse, without Plaxo?
Enter Spokeo, which does exactly that. Enter your GMail, Yahoo, or other major mail service credentials, and it will scan your online address book, pull it down, and create a news feed of all of your contacts actions on the popular networks. Your college roommate posts some images to Flickr? Bam, there they are. Your old girlfriend Twitters on her canceled flight? Now you share her pain. That guy you went to high school with creates a new mix to listen to on Pandora? Tune in, and hear how Travis Tritt has invaded his taste. And so on.
Before you go all George Orwell, hang on: Spokeo only finds publicly accessible info on your friends. If your friend doesn't publicly publish their Twitter feed, for instance (ahem...Carlos???), you will have to authenticate before it can appear in your feed. If your Flickr account is inactive, for instance, it will denote as such. It uses a slick interface that neatly arranges your list of friends on the left, divided into those that have active and inactive accounts, and on the right is the latest activity from them all. You can drill down to the individual or service you want to see. The image to the right here is from my feed, today.
I've played around with it for a couple of days, and here's some observations:
- It's free.
- It's slow. They got slammed with a Techcrunch story that is pegging their servers, but hey, it's free.
- They seem to have a 1001 limit of friends, and it goes alphabetically by first name. For folks with over 8000+ contacts like me, that's a drag, since I get as far as friends with first names starting with "C," and that's it (sorry, Vasska; guess I'll just pick you up on Pulse). Pulse has that completely beat, with up to 10K.
- Their "spidering" of your Yahoo contacts seems flawed: it loses the first name of the contact, giving your contacts a fabulouso Hollywood "Madonna" one word name. ;-)
- Did I mention it's slow? Took almost 15 minutes to handle 1001 contacts, and pegged my CPU while it did it.
- It has one killer feature Pulse is missing: the ability to manually add any RSS feed to any contact. For instance, I could add the RSS feed for my corporate blog to my contact, and see new posts in that blog associated with me.
Overall, Spokeo, like Pulse, offers a glimpse into an entirely new way of perceiving the web: a personal feed. In many ways, this is a rudimentary first step to what my fellow high school alumnus, Nova Spivack, calls the "semantic web:" the ability to perceive not just data, but meaningful data. Overall, I still very much prefer Pulse, but if you are turned off by Plaxo for some strange reason, I encourage you to try Spokeo, and get hooked on what your friends are up to.
Enter Spokeo, which does exactly that. Enter your GMail, Yahoo, or other major mail service credentials, and it will scan your online address book, pull it down, and create a news feed of all of your contacts actions on the popular networks. Your college roommate posts some images to Flickr? Bam, there they are. Your old girlfriend Twitters on her canceled flight? Now you share her pain. That guy you went to high school with creates a new mix to listen to on Pandora? Tune in, and hear how Travis Tritt has invaded his taste. And so on.
Before you go all George Orwell, hang on: Spokeo only finds publicly accessible info on your friends. If your friend doesn't publicly publish their Twitter feed, for instance (ahem...Carlos???), you will have to authenticate before it can appear in your feed. If your Flickr account is inactive, for instance, it will denote as such. It uses a slick interface that neatly arranges your list of friends on the left, divided into those that have active and inactive accounts, and on the right is the latest activity from them all. You can drill down to the individual or service you want to see. The image to the right here is from my feed, today.I've played around with it for a couple of days, and here's some observations:
- It's free.
- It's slow. They got slammed with a Techcrunch story that is pegging their servers, but hey, it's free.
- They seem to have a 1001 limit of friends, and it goes alphabetically by first name. For folks with over 8000+ contacts like me, that's a drag, since I get as far as friends with first names starting with "C," and that's it (sorry, Vasska; guess I'll just pick you up on Pulse). Pulse has that completely beat, with up to 10K.
- Their "spidering" of your Yahoo contacts seems flawed: it loses the first name of the contact, giving your contacts a fabulouso Hollywood "Madonna" one word name. ;-)
- Did I mention it's slow? Took almost 15 minutes to handle 1001 contacts, and pegged my CPU while it did it.
- It has one killer feature Pulse is missing: the ability to manually add any RSS feed to any contact. For instance, I could add the RSS feed for my corporate blog to my contact, and see new posts in that blog associated with me.
Overall, Spokeo, like Pulse, offers a glimpse into an entirely new way of perceiving the web: a personal feed. In many ways, this is a rudimentary first step to what my fellow high school alumnus, Nova Spivack, calls the "semantic web:" the ability to perceive not just data, but meaningful data. Overall, I still very much prefer Pulse, but if you are turned off by Plaxo for some strange reason, I encourage you to try Spokeo, and get hooked on what your friends are up to.
Labels: beta, lifehacks, Plaxo, reviews, social networks, Twitter, Web 2.0
Monday, November 26, 2007
Some Thanksgiving wishes, Twitter-style
Happy Cyber Monday! On this first Monday after Thanksgiving, I find several things to be thankful for, and Twitter is helping me celebrate:
- I am thankful for the early gifts I received from Charles & the rest of the Barletta clan (Dude, Rampage was totally made for the Wii! And The Rock Criterion Edition? YES!).
- I am thankful for Transformers in my living room, thanks to Lani & Pete.
- I am happy to have reconnected with old friends, as their nuptials approach.
- I am hysterical at the amazing prose of unexpected Twitterers during last night's Patriots game ("The Russian is cut!")
- I am thankful to find Dell's Outlet pushing unadvertised deals through Twitter!
So, this Thanksgiving, I am thankful for Twitter, and the fun it brings.
Happy Cyber Monday! On this first Monday after Thanksgiving, I find several things to be thankful for, and Twitter is helping me celebrate:- I am thankful for the early gifts I received from Charles & the rest of the Barletta clan (Dude, Rampage was totally made for the Wii! And The Rock Criterion Edition? YES!).
- I am thankful for Transformers in my living room, thanks to Lani & Pete.
- I am happy to have reconnected with old friends, as their nuptials approach.
- I am hysterical at the amazing prose of unexpected Twitterers during last night's Patriots game ("The Russian is cut!")
- I am thankful to find Dell's Outlet pushing unadvertised deals through Twitter!
So, this Thanksgiving, I am thankful for Twitter, and the fun it brings.
Labels: Twitter
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Twitter, meet Facebook
A short while ago, I blogged about the overwhelming and, in my opinion, unjustified hype about Facebook. My opinion still remains the same: Facebook is still way too much of a closed network to take advantage of many of the obviously better properties of Web 2.0. It does have one effective by product, however: all that hype is driving critical mass. That means more people will use Facebook than other, more elegant solutions. It also means they don't have to embrace open standards: they can command a large enough audience to force other sites to create Facebook "applications" and include them in their buried infrastructure, as that's where the eyeballs are.
Take status updates, for example. Twitter seems to be waning in popularity, as Facebook is waxing. Sure, Facebook status updates are there, but they lack the sheer usability of Twitter. Can I get SMS updates of my friends' status messages? Who knows: on Facebook, you might be able to, but it's infinitely harder than Twitter. Still, that's where the eyeballs are. Do I have to update both??
Maybe not. Like Twitter, I can update my status in Facebook through SMS, albeit a bit kludgier. In a typical Facebook move, you can get an RSS feed of your status updates, though locating it takes at least 3 levels deep. With the addition of a free service called Twitterfeed and some pretty convoluted configuration, you can theoretically have your Facebook status periodically update your Twittering.
This type of hack is reminiscent of other similar techniques employed in the past by frustrated users of closed network systems, chafing at the bit. Remember Prodigy? AOL? CompuServe? The one thing we have learned is that, to survive and thrive, no community can be an island. Sure, Facebook is the belle of the moment, but they had better sell soon, before the rising critical mass deserts them for the next big thing. The most frustrating part is that they should know this: MySpace was so closed network that even the fickle teens cast it aside for Facebook, once they opened membership.
So, I'll keep using Facebook, as that's where the people are, while finding every crack I can to make it open and hope for the rise of Plaxo's Pulse. Enjoy this Facebook hack, hopefully the first of many.
Take status updates, for example. Twitter seems to be waning in popularity, as Facebook is waxing. Sure, Facebook status updates are there, but they lack the sheer usability of Twitter. Can I get SMS updates of my friends' status messages? Who knows: on Facebook, you might be able to, but it's infinitely harder than Twitter. Still, that's where the eyeballs are. Do I have to update both??Maybe not. Like Twitter, I can update my status in Facebook through SMS, albeit a bit kludgier. In a typical Facebook move, you can get an RSS feed of your status updates, though locating it takes at least 3 levels deep. With the addition of a free service called Twitterfeed and some pretty convoluted configuration, you can theoretically have your Facebook status periodically update your Twittering.This type of hack is reminiscent of other similar techniques employed in the past by frustrated users of closed network systems, chafing at the bit. Remember Prodigy? AOL? CompuServe? The one thing we have learned is that, to survive and thrive, no community can be an island. Sure, Facebook is the belle of the moment, but they had better sell soon, before the rising critical mass deserts them for the next big thing. The most frustrating part is that they should know this: MySpace was so closed network that even the fickle teens cast it aside for Facebook, once they opened membership.
So, I'll keep using Facebook, as that's where the people are, while finding every crack I can to make it open and hope for the rise of Plaxo's Pulse. Enjoy this Facebook hack, hopefully the first of many.
