Embrace the Chaos (and other scary tales of the social web)
- 4. Did you know 4.0?
(Content by XPLANE, The Economist, Karl Fisch, Scott McLeod and Laura Bestler)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ILQrUrEWe8
- 5. their deaths have not been exaggerated
• democratization > gatekeepers
• amateurs > experts
• transparency > p.r. spins & brand mgmt
• collaboration > corporate think tanks
• openness/sharing > secrets/intellectual
property
- 7. the tale of the mysterious taggers
http://www.flickr.com/photos/statelibraryofnsw/3484530193/
- 11. the results
• 10.4 Million views
• 79% of 4,615 photos marked as ‘favorite’
• 15,000 new contacts for Library of Congress
• 7,166 comments left on 2,873 photos by 2,562 unique
Flickr accounts
• 67,176 tags added by 2,518 unique Flickr users
• <25 instances removed because inappropriate
• their press/blogger coverage was through the roof
Report: For the Common Good, October 30, 2008
http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/flickr_report_final_summary.pdf
- 12. why it succeeded
• the Library of Congress erred on the side of open
(even the licensing)
• they thought of it as an ‘experiment’ rather than a
well-formed strategy
• they trusted and let go of control - they embraced
the chaos
• they looked at it as a long-term partnership
- 18. 600,000 visits PER DAY
(that made fivethirtyeight.com the 2nd most popular political site of 2008)
(in <5 months, rising out of obscurity)
(run initially by ONE guy)
- 19. why?
• Silver offered up something valuable
• the site was born out of a passion - first for
numbers, then baseball, then politics
• these numbers were not only accurate, but they
also simplified very complex information
• Silver listened to his audience. He interacted,
responded and tweaked as necessary
- 21. the law of mashups
• no matter how much you lock stuff down, it
will be taken and repurposed.
• you should be so lucky as to have your content
remixed. If it isn’t remixed, worry about the
relevance/interestingness of your work.
- 33. what are the benefits of mashups
1. Onramps & Offramps: more ways for people to
interact with and consume your content (traffic
from Twitter’s API is 10x twitter.com)
2. Creativity: those projects you would never get
to in a million years (or think of) are created!
3. Exposure: the more fun the mashup, the more
likely you will get some press from it
- 34. most popular mashup apis
• Google Maps >1800 mashups recorded
• Flickr >500 mashups recorded
• YouTube >415 mashups recorded
• Amazon >315 mashups recorded
• Twitter >275 mashups recorded
- 37. stats on fold.it
• Study found folding teams do much better than
individuals
• >100,000 players in under 1 year
• A 13 year old non-scientist (no training) won
the folding competition
- 42. turn the bullhorn around
• stop being ‘experts’ and start interacting
• watch, listen and learn from what your
audience needs
• collect data on what your readers share and
interact with and tweak
- 43. become part of the community
• become more collaborative and open
• discuss articles in progress with twitter
followers, facebook fans, etc.
• read and link to blogs that are on topic
• really figure out what people are interested in/
talking about by being social on the SNs
- 44. create amazing experiences
• create information out of passion
• simplify complex stories (infographics, stats,
etc.)
• inject more fun into your content
• create social interactions between readers
• let people personalize their experience
- 45. embrace the chaos
• let go of control; offer APIs, widgets, etc.
• get experimental! (i.e. try things without
knowing the results beforehand)
• learn from other industries and the successes of
the hyper-viral
• put a human face on your product
- 46. find your higher purpose
• think customer centrically: put your audience’s
success at the core of every decision you make
• get behind the passions of the community; or
• promote something bigger than your own work
(equal access to education?)
• get involved in your local community events
- 49. tara ‘missrogue’ hunt
author, The Whuffie Factor
http://www.horsepigcow.com
http://www.thewhuffiefactor.com
p. 514-679-2951
e. horsepigcow@gmail.com
t. twitter.com/missrogue