Scott Monty

Not So Delicious

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Wgi7DTsDt2g/TQwubBKyHTI/AAAAAAAACFc/xHulo-k_UIQ/s1600/sprouts.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="214" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Wgi7DTsDt2g/TQwubBKyHTI/AAAAAAAACFc/xHulo-k_UIQ/s320/sprouts.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Well, it was bound to happen. <a href="http://techcrunch.com/2010/12/16/is-yahoo-shutting-down-del-icio-us/">Yahoo has decided to sunset</a> some of its services, and that includes social bookmarking site Delicious. 
 
And here we see one of the inherent dangers of relying on (free) third-party sites for business and personal purposes. If you don't have control over your data, you're exposing yourself to a potential house of cards that can come tumbling down at any time. It's always a good idea to have your data backed up, even in the cloud-based environment. For bookmarks in particular, <a href="http://www.xmarks.com/">Xmarks</a> actually allows you to sync and back up your bookmarks across a number of browsers. 
 
But before you panic about Delicious, it looks like <a href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/cloud/2010/12/host-your-own-delicious-altern.php">there may be a future for them</a> after all - just not at Yahoo. In their own blog, Delicious states that <a href="http://blog.delicious.com/blog/2010/12/whats-next-for-delicious.html">they will in fact remain open</a> for business - just not with Yahoo. 
 
Delicious offered the following statement to users: 
<blockquote>Is Delicious being shut down? And should I be worried about my data? 
- No, we are not shutting down Delicious. While we have determined that there is not a strategic fit at Yahoo!, we believe there is a ideal home for Delicious outside of the company where it can be resourced to the level where it can be competitive. 
 
What if I want to get my bookmarks out of Delicious right away? 
- As noted above, there’s no reason to panic. We are maintaining Delicious and encourage you to keep using it. That said, we have export options if you so choose. Additionally, many services provide the ability to import Delicious links and tags. 
We can only imagine how upsetting the news coverage over the past 24 hours has been to many of you. Speaking for our team, we were very disappointed by the way that this appeared in the press. We’ll let you know more as things develop.</blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Wgi7DTsDt2g/TQz79rp_kdI/AAAAAAAACFk/49nUQhDBidw/s1600/Delicious.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="97" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Wgi7DTsDt2g/TQz79rp_kdI/AAAAAAAACFk/49nUQhDBidw/s320/Delicious.PNG" width="320" /></a></div> 
Now, if you'd still like to take the leap and migrate your bookmarks to other sites, here are <a href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/now_yahoo_says_delicious_will_live_onsomewhere_els.php">some alternatives to using Delicious</a> (courtesy of Read Write Web) and <a href="http://thenextweb.com/lifehacks/2010/12/17/how-to-export-import-and-migrate-delicious-bookmarks/">others from TheNextWeb</a>. I've been trying out <a href="http://www.diigo.com/">Diigo</a> and <a href="http://www.evernote.com/">Evernote</a>, and now Microsoft's <a href="http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/onenote/">OneNote</a> with my new Windows 7 / Office 2010 system, but at the moment, I'm comfortable staying with Delicious myself. 
 
How about you? Are there other clipping or bookmarking services that you use or prefer? Educate us all in the comments section. 
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div> 
Photo credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/22255707@N08/2873790921/">Kymberly Janisch (Flickr)</a>

Not So Delicious

Well, it was bound to happen. Yahoo has decided to sunset some of its services, and that includes social bookmarking site Delicious. And ...

Facebook's Need for Better Communication

<div class="separator" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/48227377@N05/4875046270/"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Wgi7DTsDt2g/TQruLvWGmYI/AAAAAAAACFQ/16oeuCTwzF0/s320/facepalm.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>It seems that every time Facebook makes a change, it's a major gaffe. With Mark Zuckerberg being named the Time <a href="http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/0,28757,2036683,00.html">Person of the Year</a> for 2010, you would think that there would be a little more thought that goes into the company's approach to privacy, major UI changes, and how those are communicated to the very people those changes affect. 
 
Just two months ago, Facebook made news with its rollout of new Groups, which <a href="http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=434691727130">Zuckerberg claimed</a> would be "giving you more control." A press conference at Facebook's HQ was <a href="http://www.fastcompany.com/1693443/facebooks-big-announcements-dashboards-personal-information-downloads-friend-group-lists?partner=homepage_newsletter">livestreamed</a>, people seemed to be intrigued and Facebook got high praise for a smarter approach to <a href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/facebooks_new_groups_will_change_and_increase_the.php">filtering out the noise</a> and <a href="http://www.fastcompany.com/1693443/facebooks-big-announcements-dashboards-personal-information-downloads-friend-group-lists?partner=homepage_newsletter">paying more attention to privacy</a>. 
 
However, as it goes with some celebrations, the revelers awoke the next day with a bit of a hangover. It was discovered that Facebook members could add each other to groups without their consent. Hence, <a href="http://blogs.forbes.com/andygreenberg/2010/10/07/mark-zuckerberg-joins-the-north-american-man-boy-love-association-and-other-adventures-in-facebook-groups/">Mark Zuckerberg joining the North American Man-Boy Love Association</a> was meant to prove that even the CEO of the world's largest social network wasn't immune from privacy violations under the new system. He <a href="http://blogs.forbes.com/andygreenberg/2010/10/08/mark-zuckerberg-quits-nambla-and-facebook-downplays-privacy-criticisms-over-groups/?boxes=Homepagechannels">managed to leave the group</a>, but not before the damage was done. People quickly realized that the new Groups settings gave them <a href="http://searchengineland.com/irony-facebooks-new-groups-give-me-less-control-not-more-52495">less control, not more</a>. 
 
But more importantly than the privacy violations was how the company communicated it. As pointed out on the <a href="http://www.blogworld.com/2010/10/09/facebooks-new-groups-feature-is-opting-in-really-the-problem/">BlogWorld  & New Media Expo blog</a>, there was no documentation on how to use the new Groups feature; the notifications features were turned on by default - meaning that many people were hit with a wave of email notifications about being added to groups; and that groups seemed to be governed by the many rather than by the individual who created them. 
 
That's a lot to chew on with little to no warning that such a fundamental addition is taking place. It seems that Facebook wants to act like that other darling of Silicon Valley and social media geeks everywhere, Apple. When Steve Jobs calls a press conference, it's shrouded in secrecy, with rampant speculation about what new gadget (one that I want but don't need), upgrade or pricing strategy will be announced. But the difference is that Apple's announcements mainly deal in hardware. Facebook is a communications platform (web-based software) and the changes that are made to the interface immediately and drastically affect millions of people - people that don't have a choice in these changes. 
 
As a communications professional, I would argue that it requires complete and deliberate transparency when communicating with your user base. This is not the time to be playing guess-what-we-just-did with your customers. Time and again, Zuckerberg & Co. have been taken to task for poor communications with Facebook users, yet the same mistakes seem to be happening. 
 
The Great Page Debacle 
And then yesterday around 4:00 p.m. EST, there were some strange changes to Facebook. Suddenly, without notice, many administrators of Facebook pages realized that the tabs we're all used to seeing simply disappeared - without notice. After the panic subsided, the links were visible in the left column, but the filter function was nowhere to be found and it was noted that you couldn't have tab as the default landing site. I <a href="http://twitter.com/#!/ScottMonty/status/15526045977419776">began to wonder</a> if Facebook was doing the same thing all over again. 
 
A <a href="http://mashable.com/2010/12/16/new-facebook-pages-2/">quick check of Mashable</a> showed the <a href="http://mashable.com/2010/12/16/facebook-down-rollout/">accident being chronicled</a> throughout the afternoon and <a href="http://mashable.com/2010/12/16/facebook-prototype-features/">the changes that were apparent</a>, before this update became available from Facebook itself: 
 
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Wgi7DTsDt2g/TQr4WSRHuTI/AAAAAAAACFU/VpEfeI5Mod4/s1600/facebookchanges.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Wgi7DTsDt2g/TQr4WSRHuTI/AAAAAAAACFU/VpEfeI5Mod4/s1600/facebookchanges.png" /></a></div> 
While it reassured me to know that Facebook hadn't fallen into the same lackadaisical communications pattern as it previously had, it left me with two major concerns: 
1) Will the prototyped Pages and their functionality change at all, and will that involve feedback from the very community that will use those pages? And when it does roll out, will it be communicated to members in a clear way, with plenty of advance notice? 
 
And more importantly: 
2) If such an update can go live to 500 million people at once, is there a "publish" button near the lobby door at Facebook's headquarters that gets accidentally pushed? 
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Wgi7DTsDt2g/TQr5-f96waI/AAAAAAAACFY/A2qbCjXuSro/s1600/Red+Exit+button.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Wgi7DTsDt2g/TQr5-f96waI/AAAAAAAACFY/A2qbCjXuSro/s400/Red+Exit+button.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/24618803@N07/3848052461/">inF! (Flickr)</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>Or, as John Wayne once said: 
<embed flashvars="audioUrl=http://s279246823.onlinehome.us/multimedia/johnwayne.wav" height="27" quality="best" src="http://www.google.com/reader/ui/3523697345-audio-player.swf" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="400"></embed> 
 
Do you share any similar experiences or concerns with Facebook? 
 
Disclosure: My employer (Ford Motor Company) has a relationship with Facebook. The above opinions are my own and do not reflect those of Ford. 
 
 
Image credit (top): <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/48227377@N05/4875046270/">Gordonblixt (Flickr)</a>

Facebook's Need for Better Communication

It seems that every time Facebook makes a change, it's a major gaffe. With Mark Zuckerberg being named the Time Person of the Year for ...

I Think That I Shall Never See...

A blog as lovely as a tree? I hope <a href="http://www.bartleby.com/104/119.html">Joyce Kilmer</a> can forgive me for that. 
 
The fine folks at Eloqua and JESS3 have seen some lovely blogs, and have created a unique infographic called <a href="http://blog.eloqua.com/the-blog-tree">The Blog Tree</a> that categorizes some of the essential sites into roots, branches and leaves sorted by categories and relative site traffic. It's a fascinating look at some of the key blogs (which I've linked to below) and how they fit together. 
 
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Wgi7DTsDt2g/TQg3dty-NwI/AAAAAAAACFM/KKCHuL9-MLc/s1600/The+Blog+Tree.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Wgi7DTsDt2g/TQg3dty-NwI/AAAAAAAACFM/KKCHuL9-MLc/s640/The+Blog+Tree.jpg" width="438" /></a></div> 
Before we get to the full list, I've collected some great quotes about trees that seem to apply to the world of social media and digital marketing from authors, poets and leaders. See if any of these inspire you. 
<blockquote>The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a 
green thing that stands in the way. Some see Nature all ridicule and 
deformity, and some scarce see Nature at all. But to the eyes of the 
man of imagination, Nature is Imagination itself. 
- William Blake, 1799, The Letters 
 
Evolution did not intend trees to grow singly. Far more than ourselves they 
are social creatures, and no more natural as isolated specimens than man 
is as a marooned sailor or hermit. 
- John Fowles 
 
O chestnut tree, great rooted blossomer, 
Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole? 
O body swayed to music, O brightening glance, 
How can we know the dancer from the dance. 
- William Butler Yeats, Among School Children 
 
Good timber does not grow with ease; 
the stronger the wind, the stronger the trees. 
- J. Willard Marriott 
 
Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow. 
The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing. 
- Abraham Lincoln</blockquote> 
The following is the complete list of blogs in The Blog Tree. Feel free to lift this list and put it on your blog - but also feel free to add to it. There's also a taggable version available on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/eloqua">Facebook</a>. If there are other blogs you think are worthy of our orchard, please consider leaving suggestions in the comments section below or expand the list on your site, linking back here. 
 
 
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">And lest you think that it's unattainable to reach the level of any of the prolific and thought-provoking authors above, I refer you to Ralph Waldo Emerson:</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"> 
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;">"The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn."</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"> 
</div> 
 
Water Table 
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/www.arstechnica.com">Ars Technica</a> 
<a href="http://gigaom.com/">GigaOm</a> 
<a href="http://mashable.com/">Mashable</a> 
<a href="http://readwriteweb.com/">ReadWriteWeb</a> 
<a href="http://techcrunch.com/">TechCrunch</a> 
<a href="http://thenextweb.com/">The Next Web</a> 
<a href="http://www.allfacebook.com/">AllFacebook</a> 
 
Venture Capital / Entrepreneurship 
<a href="http://cracking-the-code.blogspot.com/">Cracking the Code</a> 
<a href="http://bostonvcblog.typepad.com/">Seeing Both Sides</a> 
<a href="http://www.avc.com/">A VC</a> 
<a href="http://www.paulgraham.com/articles.html">Paul Graham, YCombinator, Essays</a> 
<a href="http://www.feld.com/wp/">Feld Thoughts</a> 
<a href="http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/">Both Sides of the Table</a> 
<a href="http://abovethecrowd.com/">Above The Crowd</a> 
<a href="http://500hats.typepad.com/500blogs/">Master of 500 Hats</a> 
<a href="http://onstartups.com/">OnStartups</a> 
<a href="http://www.forentrepreneurs.com/">Blog of David Skok</a> 
<a href="http://venturehacks.com/">Venture Hacks</a> 
 
News 
<a href="http://www.b2bbloggers.com/">B2B Bloggers</a> 
<a href="http://bigfatmarketingblog.com/">The Big Fat Marketing Blog</a> 
<a href="http://www.centernetworks.com/">Center Networks</a> 
<a href="http://blog.clickz.com/">blog.clickz.com</a> 
<a href="http://www.customerthink.com/">Customer Think</a> 
<a href="http://destinationcrmblog.com/">DestinationCRMblog.com</a> 
<a href="http://sherpablog.marketingsherpa.com/">Marketing Sherpa</a> 
<a href="http://www.marketingpilgrim.com/">Marketing Pilgrim</a> 
<a href="http://www.zdnet.com/news">blogs.Zdnet.com</a> 
<a href="http://news.cnet.com/wisdom-of-clouds/">The Wisdom of Clouds/James Urquhart</a> 
<a href="http://www.mpdailyfix.com/">MarketingProfs Blog</a> 
 
How-To 
<a href="http://blog.hubspot.com/">HubSpot Blog</a> 
<a href="http://www.chiefmartec.com/">Chief Marketing Technologist</a> 
<a href="http://blogs.forrester.com/">Forrester Blogs</a> 
<a href="http://www.copyblogger.com/">Copy Blogger</a> 
<a href="http://customerexperiencematrix.blogspot.com/">Customer Experience Matrix</a> 
<a href="http://www.ducttapemarketing.com/">Ducttape Marketing</a> 
<a href="http://www.bnet.com/blog/salesmachine">Blogs.bnet Sales Machine</a> 
<a href="http://blog.startwithalead.com/">B2B Lead Generation Blog / InTouch</a> 
<a href="http://contentmarketingtoday.com/">Content Marketing Today</a> 
<a href="http://marketingconversation.com/">Marketing Conversation</a> 
<a href="http://blog.guykawasaki.com/#axzz16u159RqJ">How To Change The World</a> 
<a href="http://blog.eloqua.com/">It's All About Revenue</a> 
<a href="http://www.green-leads.com/b2b-blog/">Smashmouth Marketing Blog</a> 
<a href="http://scobleizer.com/">Scobleizer</a> 
<a href="http://www.marketingexperiments.com/blog">Marketing Experiments</a> 
<a href="http://www.annhandley.com/">Ann Handley</a> 
<a href="http://fearlesscompetitor.net/">Fearless Competitor</a> 
 
Personal Branding 
<a href="http://www.personalbrandingblog.com/">Dan Schawbel</a> 
<a href="http://www.guykawasaki.com/">Guy Kawasaki</a> 
<a href="http://www.beingpeterkim.com/">Being Peter Kim</a> 
<a href="http://cc-chapman.com/">CC-Chapman.com</a> 
<a href="http://www.christopherakoch.com/">Chris Koch’s B2B Marketing Blog</a> 
<a href="http://www.conversationagent.com/">Conversation Agent</a> 
<a href="http://www.dhcommunications.com/blog/">Dianna Huff's B2B MarCom Writing Blog</a> 
<a href="http://www.marketersstudio.com/">Inside the Marketer's Studio</a> 
<a href="http://marketinginteractions.typepad.com/">Marketing Interactions</a> 
<a href="http://www.funnelholic.com/">The Funnelholic</a> 
<a href="http://www.sethgodin.com/sg/">Seth Godin</a> 
<a href="http://www.twistimage.com/blog/">Six Pixels of Separation</a> 
<a href="http://www.christopherspenn.com/">Awaken Your Superhero</a> 
<a href="http://digitalbodylanguage.blogspot.com/">Digital Body Language</a> 
<a href="http://www.chrisbrogan.com/">ChrisBrogan.com</a> 
 
PR 
<a href="http://www.pr-squared.com/">PR Squared</a> 
<a href="http://steverubel.com/">SteveRubel.com</a> 
<a href="http://blog.holtz.com/">A Shel of My Former Self</a> 
<a href="http://briansolis.com/">BrianSolis.com</a> 
<a href="http://darmano.typepad.com/">Logic + Emotion</a> 
<a href="http://www.webinknow.com/">WebinkNow</a> 
<a href="http://gillin.com/">Gillin.com</a> 
<a href="http://pr.typepad.com/">PR Communications</a> 
<a href="http://www.buzzmarketingfortechnology.com/">Buzz Marketing For Technology</a> 
<a href="http://jaffejuice.com/">JaffeJuice.com</a> 
<a href="http://blog.junta42.com/">Junta42 Blog</a> 
<a href="http://rohitbhargava.typepad.com/">Influential Marketing Blog</a> 
 
Social Media 
<a href="http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/">Web Strategy by Jeremiah Owyang</a> 
<a href="http://www.convinceandconvert.com/">Convince and Convert</a> 
<a href="http://socialmediab2b.com/">Social Media B2B</a> 
<a href="http://www.conversationmarketing.com/">Conversation Marketing</a> 
<a href="http://www.scottmonty.com/">Social Media Marketing Blog</a> 
<a href="http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/">Social Media Examiner</a> 
<a href="http://www.smartbrief.com/news/socialmedia">Smart Brief on Social Media</a> 
<a href="http://blog.jess3.com/">Jess3 Blog</a> 
<a href="http://www.socialtimes.com/">SocialTimes</a>

I Think That I Shall Never See...

A blog as lovely as a tree? I hope Joyce Kilmer can forgive me for that. The fine folks at Eloqua and JESS3 have seen some lovely blogs, ...

Scott Monty - Strategic Communications & Leadership Advisor

Not So Delicious

Facebook's Need for Better Communication

I Think That I Shall Never See...

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