Posts tagged isum11

Note: See all my notes from Internet Summit 2011 by clicking here.

Notes from Internet Summit 2011 in Raleigh, 2011-11-16.

An Interactive Fireside Chat with Noah Everett, Founder, Twitpic

Q: Let’s talk about TwitPic. How did it start, where did you go?

Noah Everett: It was 2008. It seemed like a good shortcut to share pictures, I stayed late at work with some Red Bull and wrote it over a weekend, and launched it. Then it got picked up by blogs and media, and went from there.

Q: When did you realize it could be a business?

NE: In 2009, one of our users took a picture of the plane in the Hudson and TwitPic’d it and it exploded. We had one server at the time, and it melted. I realized then that TwitPic wasn’t just a photo-sharing tool, it was for breaking news, etc. We’ve been running ads since 2008 and run at about a 70% profit margin, which has allowed us to not take any funding. We have 7 employees counting me and Mom & Dad.

Q: Where do you see the micro-blogging space going? What are some uses for microblogging that people maybe haven’t heard of?

NE: I separate it into Facebook (private) vs. Twitter (public). Twitter is just a great way to share openly what you’re doing without having to log into Facebook and have that network.

UNICED uses TwitPic a lot because they’ve found that their tweets get a lot more exposure if they include pictures of people they’re helping.

Q: How have you been impacted by Twitter’s own photosharing app?

NE: Twitter’s a great company. We were blindsided by it and we wish they’d communicated better with their outside developers there. But we haven’t really noticed a loss of traffic or growth, so we’re happy.

Q: Tell us about Heello.

NE: We really rushed to get it out. It’s very much a Twitter clone right now, but next year you’ll see it really change. We’re working to make it more location-based, so you’re seeing information based on your area.

Q: Any advice on how to get a new app noticed, other than waiting for another Hudson plane crash?

NE: First and foremost, build an app that solves an issue for people. For getting exposure, make sure your app can share to Twitter & Facebook, and let your users promote your app. Make the barrier to entry as low as possible for your user.

Q: You get some interesting pics through TwitPic. Any interesting ones?

NE: Ashton tweeted Demi’s Moore’s butt. The funniest are celebrity ones. We’re running a thing for Movember now.

Q: What’s your advice to other startups re: taking VC funding versus growing organically?

NE: You’ll get approached by VCs as soon as your app gets started. My rule is “If you don’t need it, don’t take it.” We’ve talked to a lot of them, but we can’t figure out what we’d use their money for, so we turn them down. That means we still control the direction of the company.

Q: Give us a sense of the metrics that pass through your servers.

NE: We process about 1 billion requests a day. We try to be really smart and lean with our servers - we have about 50 of them. Amazon S3 is our primary data storage. Somebody from Amazon told us we were accounting for 1% of all Amazon S3 data storage last year.

Q: 5 years from now, where do you think Twitter, Facebook, etc. will be?

NE: The biggest challenge now is curating the data you want to see. Making it more integrated into our daily lives so we can get past the “following too many people” problem.

Q: What problems or successes have you had with Amazon?

NE: There are cheaper solutions out there now, but overall their service is the best and we’re happy with them. That said, we built our system to failover in the case of downtime, but that’s kind of not a problem anymore.

Q: Are you looking to recreate the old Twitter Developer Love with Helo

NE: Definitely. We’re trying to be upfront about where we’re going. Our API is live but we haven’t launched it yet. Hopefully we’ve been clear about what areas we’re going into so our developers don’t get blindsided.

Note: See all my notes from Internet Summit 2011 by clicking here.

Venture Capital Startup Roundtable, Internet Summit 2011 in Raleigh, 2011-11-16.

Sean Marsh, Co-founder & General Partner, Point Judith Capital
David Heaney, Sr. Associate, TomorrowVentures
Don Rainey, General Partner, Grotech Ventures
Jason Caplain (moderator), General Partner & Co-founder, Southern Capital Ventures

Q: What do you look for in a new prospect that approaches you?

Sean Marsh: We invest early, so we often invest in something like 2 people and an idea. It’s about passionate, energetic, visionary people going after a big market. The first product you go after a big market with is probably not the product you’ll eventually succeed with, and we know that. We back a lot of people who are first-time entrepreneurs, first-time founders, who figure out how to surround themselves with impressive people.

David Heaney: TomorrowVentures is pretty similar, we look for similar things. On the idea side we’re looking for something that’s different and unique. We see lots of ideas that are kind of the same. We’re looking for someone who’s finding a new market or bringing new technology to an existing market. We’re looking for a team with leadership, persistence, perseverence, or do they have technical or domain expertise that will help them on the execution side.

Don Rainer: I react to the first meeting with a prospect. The CEO has 3 aims: win, make a ton of money, or change the world. The Change the World people are where we make our money. If they’re trying to “win” the tendency is to narrow down the game. Making money is usually about taking shortcuts. Changing the world involves no narrowing and no shortcuts. So what’s a Big Idea? A big idea is frequently where you’re in the meeting and you think, “This is an interesting concept and I’m not sure which industry it would have the biggest impact in.” It’s a crisis of opportunity.

Q: Let’s talk about your last investment. The timing, and the reaons you invested.

DR: I just invested in Gramercy 1 (?) - it’s OpenTable for everything but restaurants. I like it because it’s broadly applicable, but also because they have traction. They already have 2500 spas using their product.

DH: Our most recent is Prism Skylabs in the Bay Area. They’re connecting the online & offline worlds through security cameras. They have a way to bring most of those “offline” security cameras online. It has a lot of value for both consumers and companies — for instance you could go to Yelp and see live video from the restaurant to see if it’s busy. From the merchant side, you could use the feed to run analytics on traffic, etc. Bringing that data into the cloud has a ton of value in different industries. So we liked the product but the team is also great.

SM: The most recent for me is a company in NY called Igniter. It’s an Indian group and social dating site. Where India is right now on the Internet is about where the US was in 1997-98. Rate of growth of penetration in India is huge. So we’ve backed these 3 guys. They launched this group-dating thing in the US and it flopped, but hundreds of thousands of people in India started registering for it. So to their credit, they said, “OK, we have to go there,” instead of trying to force it in the US. The world is definitely flat and it’s easy to move a product like that around the world.

Q: Raising VC is hard and it’s not right for every company. What strategies have you seen for entrepreneurs that don’t involve raising capital?

SM: I’d say in a lot of cases if you want to build something big, at some point you’ll want outside capital to grow faster. You can build it without capital but it will be slower.

DR: We live in an interesting time, where you can start a business with very little capital. There are people who are doing hundreds of startups. That’s prompting a ton of small companies with solo guys with no money. That can be a limited value prop for the entrepreneur because it’s harder to do it yourself. If you’re going to do it without outside money, you probably need 2-4 founders instead of one. And ideally you need to go into a cash business so you have cashflow.

DH: Picking a business model carefully, like an online-only model that’s low cost, plus an immediate cash flow, is important. Other value VCs provide, though, is to surround you with talent that complements your talent. If you’re strong technically, you need cofounders with other skills. Or build a network of mentors. That’s so critical in the first 6-12 months.

Q: The costs of building a company have sharply declined in the last 10 years. Are you able to put in less money and finance less over that time? How as your approach changed?

DR: I don’t think the physics have changed. When we go to a startup pitch festival, I feel like I should be making a sandwich — I could put 4 or 5 pitches together and make a company that I’d put $1M into. We’re still always backing companies that need a million dollars or something. There are incubators everywhere handing out $50k/100k etc., but we still deal with the bigger things.

SM: What I’ve found in these companies that take smaller money to figure things out, is that a lot of times our first 6 months with them is a push and pull with them where they’ve got the money but they don’t want to go. You have to work through that gear-shirt with them. That’s a dynamic I’ve seen. Frugality at the cost of equity value creation.

DH:To get the really big ideas still takes large amounts of money. With the smaller amounts of money you can get further in understanding the market and tweaking the product before committing a larger amount of money to juice big growth.

Q: What are some good online resources for entrepreneurs? Where do you send people?

SM: Fred Wilson’s blog is really good, especially if it’s truly your first time around.

DR: There are always segment-specific newsletters. I’m a fan of those, they’re high-impact.

DH: Some venture funds have newsletters and online resources that describe the types of things they’re looking for. Also, go to big universities (MIT, Stanford, Duke, Georgia Tech, etc.) websites. They have sections devoted to who you can talk to in the community and what’s available for new or early-stage companies.

Q: What’s your favorite company you’re NOT an investor in?

DH: J. Hilburn from Dallas, TX. They’ve done a great job talking to their customers and then customizing their business model. They provide high-quality custom-tailored clothes for men. By using ecommerce and shortening the supply chain they could make things cheap, but they found that guys hate measuring themselves for clothes. So they created an on-the-ground sales force to h

DR: Pinterest. It’s a virtual pinboard(?)

SM: I have two. Gilt, a high-end fashion goods club/sales site. Also, Rent the Runway, a site for renting very high-end dressed & accesories for women.

Audience Q: I struggle with the question of competition - answering the question of “am I a feature or a product?” How do I get past that block?

SM: When you start your company you need a focus, but think about how building the business creates barriers to entry for others - how it builds walls that give you a competitive edge.

DH: Another thing is looking at competitors in adjacent spaces — they haven’t already done it for some reason. Think about why not. Maybe it’s actually not high on their priority list.

Audience Q: Should I negotiate around a term sheet or should I just take what’s offered? Do you guys negotiate around, say, Series B terms or keep the same terms as Series A?

SM: It’s all over the map. Broadly speaking we try to make our Seed and A-round terms as simple as possible to avoid complicating things later.

DR: If you’re dealing with somebody who’s trying to make money on the terms, you’re dealing with a knucklehead! If they’re trying to make something overly complex, just go to the next person. The truth is at A-stage things are going to work out or not, and it’s not because of the terms. The question is what’s a fair value that in the fullness of time we all feel good about?

Audience Q: What role do you play once financing is complete? How active are you in the company?

SM: We sit on the board, we try to be as valuable to the entrepreneur as possible. We try to do everything we can to make the entrepreneur better. That usually means helping to build the team.

DR: A lot of what we do is “what can go wrong next,” etc. I’ve been around startups for 30 years and I’ve got a lot of perspective I can share privately with the CEO about what’s going well, what’s not. Initially they don’t take as much of that advice in the first 6 months as they start to later :).

DH: We vary widely on how involved we are and the types of help we give. If we’re not the lead investor, we put ourselves out there as ready to help but we’re less proactive. If we’re taking board seats, we’re trying to be as helpful and possible but without dictating actions. Our role is to help actively when asked.

Audience Q: You mentioned having 2-4 founders to help spread the work. What advice do you have for EXISTING companies who have hit a growth roadblock and are spread too thin?

DR: All these businesses grow through plateaus. Adding the talent you need requires figuring out what skills you’re missing. You have to do your own inventory of what elements you could add to the mix that will change things. Most small businesses are small for a reason - frequently it’s due to problems with customer acquisition. If you could acquire more customers, you could grow. You can’t succeed at customer acquisition and stay small.

Audience Q: When multiple VCs invest together, what are typical challenges they and the prospect company face? (too many cooks in the kitchen)

SM: At the end of the day, if you’ve got an investor and a new investor coming in, if they can’t quickly agree on things at the beginning, if there’s not rapid agreement on things you’re probably going to have more problems going forward. Syndicates can be really powerful and successful but can also be really distracting. Have these guys done deals together before then that’s good. If not, be careful?

Audience Q: What’s the right time to bring in a VC, from the standpoint of sales and revenue of my company? Are you looking for a certain level of success?

DH: It varies a lot depending on what kind of VCs you want to talk to. Some really early-stage investors don’t need to see anything. It’s a question of approaching the right firms at the right time rather than any general guideline.

Note: See all my notes from Internet Summit 2011 by clicking here.

Notes from the Online Video track of Internet Summit 2011 in Raleigh, 2011-11-15.

Jamie Beck, Service Marketing Manager, Cisco

“The Do’s and Don’ts of Webinars”

Why Webinars?

HUGE cost savings over live presentation/training/meetings

Ability to scale from an individual or small group to many

Leverage regional or global talent without travel

Allow participants to attend form their location or even from home

What are the risks?

Attendees may be multitasking / not paying attention

There are lots of bad ones; people are jaded about them :(

Easy to set up; equally easy to screw up.

“Free to Me” can equal high registration but low to no attendance.

Getting People to your Webinar - Invitations

DO - Have a clear title and message

DO - Offer some kind of incentive; think of drawing, free Starbucks card, book, something.

DO - Keep it (the invitation) short and sweet

DO - Use social media to supplement the email

DON’T - Just send a text email with a URL

DON’T - Make your target audience jump through hoops to register. Make registration simple, don’t collect a ton of data. They’ll give up.

Running Your Webinar

DO - Engage your audience

DON’T - Have 84 slides for 30 minute webinar. Don’t fall victim to “this isn’t important I’ll skip it”

DON’T - Start late. And test your equipment 30 minutes early. Don’t ever test it on your attendees.

DON’T EVER - Leave entry/exit notification turned on for a webinar. This is not a conference call.

DON’T - Read your slides word-for-word. Use good presentation skills.

Best Practices

Offer an incentive - a $20-50 drawing is a small price to pay, and it increases attendance. If your company makes products, give one away.

Use Video - People want to see your face!

ALWAYS share your material afterwards

ALWAYS leave time for Q&A

ENGAGE! Polls & multiple choice questions keep the audience active.

Note: See all my notes from Internet Summit 2011 by clicking here.

Notes from the Online Video track of Internet Summit 2011 in Raleigh, 2011-11-15.

Sam Kimball, Executive VP, Advertising & Brand Sales, Livestream

“Live Streaming Video”

5 Key Value Propositions to live video.

1. Live is a “lean in” experience. People are paying attention.
2. Natural for social integration
3. Provides real-time feedback & sharing for publishers.
4. People watch longer (9-12 minutes per video, per viewer)
5. Brand messaging stands out - higher CTRs.

How is live video done on the web?

Need a web destination & platform for broadcasting live.

Social integration (Facebook + Livestream, for instance)

Currently: Millions of channels, billions of minutes of video livestreamed monthly.

Live video is the democratization of broadcasting. Anyone can broadcast with a camera, computer, and internet connection.

Users access live video from anywhere, any device, many different bit rates.

Live video fits in any vertical that lends itself to a live event.

Top verticals:
Entertainment 15.3%
Gaming 13.8%
Music 12.5%
News & Politics 9.0%
Business & Finance, Spirituality, Sports, all about 5% each.

Leveraging Live: Custom Campaigns

A “holistic approach” to a live-streamed event.

(1) Video Production
(2) Web Development / Social App i-Frame Creation
(3) Promotion Driving Viewership « often neglected!

Getting people to watch is not an “if you build it they will come” proposition!

Promotional Playbook:

RSVP emails/reminders

Social Nets - live-streaming platform partner, participants & performers in the stream. Ask them to help; it’s in their interest!

Pre-Roll ads

Banner / RSVP ad unit

In-banner video of the livestream itself while the event is going on (see GE Eco-Imagination live-streaming campaign Spring 2011)

New Perspectives - new definition of a “livestream”; not a promotion for Livestream per se - this is just what viewers are saying they want no matter the platform.

new.livestream.com

(1) Expanding the LIVE moment beyond the live broadcast, adding a timeline of posts:
* Text
* Photos
* Images
* Clips
Relevant multimedia in the runup to the event

(2) MORE social integration, adding:
* Sharing
* Commentary
* Re-posting

(3) Adding ability to follow channels & groups of channels via personalized Livestream home page, push notifications, etc.

(4) DVR functionality during live broadcasts - let people rewind the live event if they show up late.

(5) Adaptive multi-bit rate, up to 720i HD & Akamai HD Net (automatic adjustment up and down for device and connection speed)

Note: See all my notes from Internet Summit 2011 by clicking here.

Notes from the Online Video track of Internet Summit 2011 in Raleigh, 2011-11-15.

Donna DeMarco, Co-Founder, Vice President, Viddler Inc.
@fiddlinlady

“Strategies for Engaging Your Audience with Online Video”

Video Interactions: various ways of engaging viewers of video content

Call to Action
Find out more / Email Me / Follow Me / Contact Me « put links right in the video

Invite Conversations

Contests
Invite users to upload their own videos related to your products

Customized Training & Support
Video tutorials and walkthroughs for particularly relevant tasks

Monetization

Ads have come to videos :-/.

Traditional ad revenue is coming to video, but we’ve also learned it’s OK to charge for content. If it’s an easy process, people will pay.

Online ad spending on video is increasing (as % of total online ad spend)

In-Video Ads:

Ad Networks

Need 100,000 minimum views per month before you can make money on CPM.

Your Sponsors

Real-life newspapers are moving sponsor ad content form the printed paper into their video channels. Moving their traditional ads into the digital age.

Selling Your Content

Selling Your Expertise

swingstargolf - Film your own swing from multiple angles, upload it to their site, and receive back a custom private analysis of your swing.

Measure Your Success

You can’t control what you can’t see.

Note: See all my notes from Internet Summit 2011 by clicking here.

Live notes from Internet Summit in Raleigh, 2011-11-15. Justin’s notes from the opening keynote panel, discussing “The Future of Digital Media & Marketing”

Rogelio (Ro) Choy, COO, Formspring
David Payne, Chief Digital Officer, Gannett
Maria Pergolino, Sr. Director of Marketing, Marketo
David Perry, Business Development Executive, Software & Services, Google

Kurt Merriweather (moderator), Director, Digital Media Business Development and Strategy, Discovery Communications

The biggest challenge marketers face today is getting attention in the sea of laptops, mobile devices, etc.

Q: What are the most disruptive trends we’re seeing today?

Ro Choy (RC): Harnessing and controlling viral marketing

David Payne (DPa): There’s a huge amount of fragmentation in the way people consume content.

Maria Pergolino (MP): Seeing how TV and content consumption is changing (tweeting while watching TV instead of watching commercials), culture of meetings has changed (people look things up on the spot rather than coming to meetings prepared, etc). Marketers need to take a new mult-channel approach to reach people — this didn’t happen a few years ago.

David Perry (DPe): From Google’s perspective, one of the most disruptive things is Mobile. Mobile is changing the way people interact with brands and information faster than anything else ever has. Forces marketers and businesses in general to come up with new ways to engage audiences. As much as 70% of brands stlil don’t have a mobile-ready website.

Q: As you look at the landscape, who do you think the winners are going to be in terms of monetization? Is it the platform providers like Google, is it the content providers like Gannett? Who?

MP: Early adopters often have an advantage in monetization. E.g. people who first got started advertising on Facebook had it a lot cheaper than now. So the landscape, especially for B2B, will evolve and change.

DPa: Ultimately the people who are going to monetize the best are the ones who can drive sales the most. Who’s going to win is going to come back to who can provide the range of services to convert clicks to sales.

RC: The people who are producing the best content will do it on any platform. That content is what will drive money.

DPe: It’s not clear who’s going to “win” the platform war, but it’s definitely clear that content providers are critical providers of value.

Q: So what about Facebook, Amazon, etc.? They’ve got a huge repository of consumer data. Talk about the role of this data in the process finding and acquiring customers.

DPe: Every action a customer or potential customer takes leaves some kind of trail or marker. The challenge is to put that trail to use in figuring out how to reach the customer. Start by defining the goal of the interaction and work backward through the customers’ observed behaviors to understand how to reach them.

MP: Also, it’s important to think of the customer’s perspective specifically rather than just saying, “What are all the places we can throw content just to see what happens?” You have to start at the customer’s perspective and bring them along for the ride.

DPa: You have to be cognizant of where the data comes from. First-party opt-in data, for instance, is really good. Third-party, inferential, or indirect tracking data is both a little suspect and kind of creepy.

RC: The genius of Facebook is all the things people share on it. Everything you share online is being aggregated and collated through advertisers and developers and so on. It’s an enormous amount of data. Purchase rate on this kind of data has been shown to be as much as 4x higher because you can align your product/messaging exactly to the interests/needs of the customers.

DPa: Where people are expressing an interest in a particular product obviously that works. Where marketers get into trouble is when they’re making decisions and targets based on inferred data.

Q: Let’s talk about social media in general for B2B versus B2C. Is it “better” in the B2C context over B2B?

DPe: Social media is something B2B companies like IBM are obviously taking seriously. It works well especially for support services, and is great way to turn detractors into fans.

MP: Social media is a really important channel for B2B. Lots of companies in lots of industries stuggle to figure it out because you can’t just do what Pepsi does and measure yourself against Pepsi, but customers are out there discussing you or looking for you, so you can definitely reach them.

DPa: We use social media as a marketing funnel but also as a content source; we use it as a promotor and a marketer and a news gatherer.

MP: Some B2B companies are more conservative in their use of social media, but it goes with the industry. If I buy the wrong CRM system for my company, for instance, I could lose my job. That’s not like if I decide to watch the wrong TV show. This is where recommendations from social networks like LinkedIn become critical in B2B.

Q: Talk about the role of content in marketing itself and which parties should be creating content.

DPa: This is a sticky wicket. Part of the reason why companies want to align themselves with us is because we have credibility and they put trust in us. This comes from the traditions of the “old guard” media. But that said, what’s really interesting is that advertising will evolve in an important way. The tablet shows us a completely different type of experience — it shows us why interactive television failed. The tablet, by putting touch into the equation, lets you deliver all kinds of different content and advertising in the environment of the user. You’re not limited to banner ads or commercials. Advertising starts to look more like content because it is more like content. So this new form factor allows much more varied and interactive forms of this advertising.

RC: You’re seeing a lot more social interaction at the content level. You’re reading what your friends read, or seeing what your friends bought. What do my friends think of this restaurant? What car do my friends think I should buy? etc. Even though the content creators can’t control the discussion anymore because it’s friends talking among friends, the engagement with your content is even more personal because of it.

DPe: Everyone in this room can be a content creator in just minutes on YouTube or whatever. So we’re seeing this great explosion of content. How do we make this discoverable? How do we cut through the clutter? That’s a challenge.

DPa: The discovery is moving to Social. People upload a video and post it on Facebook, then it appears in people’s feeds, etc. So the discovery is happening in those feeds.

MP: Being a good content creator is not enough. Building up a network to share the content and move it around for you. Content may be king, but not if there’s no one in your Court to see it.

Q: Who do you think is navigating the sea of change well right now?

DPe: Obviously Amazon is doing it well with the Kindle Fire, and they have support for small, medium, and large businesses.

DPa: Apple with their focus on their ecosystem is doing really well. Driving their technology platforms and marketing with simplicity is something we can all learn from.

RC: I find myself consuming a lot of content about TV shows, etc., I watch, on my iPhone. HBO, PBS, etc. are all doing this well. The mobile and tablet experience are going to subsume the web experience very soon.

Q: Let’s open it up to the floor for quesitons.

Q: The emphasis has been on 200-300 people in terms of size. What about the 1-10 person shops. What can they do?

DPe: Small businesses can take advantage of the fact that people who use mobile tend to be locally focused.

MP: You have to have a plan and goals for what you need, no matter your size. Where I see businesses going wrong is in trying to do everything. You need to choose a few channels and be deliberate in those channels. Before thinking social media, think about referrals in the real world — social media is like that. Too many channels with little content in each shows poorly for the brand.

Note: See all my notes from Internet Summit 2011 by clicking here.

Quick and dirty live notes from ”Making Mobile Apps that Stick” Dana Kirchman, SVP, Head of Client Operations, Lumi Mobile, at Internet Summit in Raleigh, 2011-11-15.

@LumiMobile, @danakirchman

Mobile apps are doing to the web what cable did to television

Timeline:
2007 iTunes App Store
2008-2009 Android
2010 iPad
2011 Subscription distribution, Kindle, HTML5
2012 and beyond: Content, Ads, B2B

iTunes is like a boutique - it’s heavily curated.

Android is like going to the mall - tons of selection.

HTML5 is anything goes.

Paying for Content: Who Wins?

Typical customer has 50-60 apps on their device.

58% of them are free apps (acquisition/marketing play)

23% are paid apps (publishing play)

Rest are default or preinstalled apps

Your mobile app needs to offer more than the web. Needs to be interactive and personal.

Four areas to differentiate:
* Entertainment: Angry Birds, Pandora, Xtra Factor
* Teach Content: Tiger Woods Swing Teacher, How to Cook Everything, “Fractions” apps 
* Manage Life: Airlines, Banks, Dropbox 
* …all with less clutter than the web.

Apps vs Web Experience

Almost no advertising in apps (for now :( )

Fewer pop-ups

Less multitasking / fewer divided screens

Less shoulder pain and squinting: “lean back” vs. “hunch forward”

Top Apps by Time Spent: Apps

Entertainment: 29%

Games: 25%

Social Networking: 13%

Top Apps by Time Spent: Web

Life Management (bill paying, etc.): 34%

Search: 25%

Social Networking: 17%

App usage is a much more leisure-oriented activity than web usage

Note: See all my notes from Internet Summit 2011 by clicking here.

Live notes from Chris Condayan, Manager of Public Education at the American Society of Microbiology (AMS) and MicrobeWorld.org on “Making The Tools Work for You - Video, Widgets, Wikis, Podcasts” at Internet Summit 2011 in Raleigh on 2011-11-15.

AMS is largest single life science membership in the world. More than 38k members. More than 26 disciplines of microbiology, with a special arm for education.

ASM has launched nine different podcast programs.

Common Widgets
* Video/Audio Players
* Weather
* News/Blog Feeds
* Twitter/Facebook/Flickr Updates
* Slideshare embedded slideshows
* Audience/User Polls (e.g. SurveyMonkey)

Why Use Widgets?

They help keep people on your site.

They’re an easy way to point people to relevant/related content on or off your site (i.e. cross-linking)

Why Create Widgets for Other Sites?

They make it easy for other people to supplement their content with your stuff. Raises awareness of what you’re doing and helps SEO.

Low development costs; it’s easy to make widgets using various free online tools.

Wikis (e.g. wikipedia)

Editable websites that allow end users to create and collaborate on content.

Use Cases:

* Document Collaboration
* Knowledge Base
* Project Management
* Intranet
* Conference Planning/Networking
* Neighborhood/Community Site
* Fan sites

ASM Communication Department uses a wiki.

Internally: collaborative platform for documents, policies, procedures

Externally: allows others to see what’s going on and contribute/comment

Podcasting

Chris’s specialty!

What is Podcasting?

Audio/Video on demand. Portable and convenient, take it with you on any device.

Content “as it is published.” As soon as production is done, it goes out to all distribution channels.

Syndicated programming, episodic content.

Podcasting Statistics

You don’t really hear about podcasting anymore, but 45% of all Americans are aware of what a podcast is (up from 22% in 2006)

1 in 4 Americans have listened to a podcast.

An estimated 31 million Americans listened to a podcast in the last month!

Compare: Only 8% of Americans used Twitter.

Breaks down evenly by gender.

Video

71% of the US Internet audience uses online video-sharing sites.

What are people watching online?

(1) Comedy & humor
(2) News
(3) Educational videos « great opportunity for ASM

How long does it take to make a podcast?

A simple chat show with no editing? As little as an hour.

Slide 15-minute edited podcast with interviews/news reporsts? 6 hours to record and edit

3-5 minute video? 1-40+ hours depending on production values

Don’t forget writing & research time too!

Is there money in Podcasting and Online Video?

Creators are experimenting with:
* Sponsorships
* Grants
* Advertising
* Listener Donations

AVOID PODFADING / burnout

Most people don’t make it to their 7th episode.

Consider a flexible production schedule. Give yourself leeway.

Consider a limited run.

Schedule vacations from production schedules (and tell your audience so they’re in the loop!)

Have an exit plan.

Choose the Right Content

#1 Message: Be Authentic.

Listeners are more interested in authenticity than production value.

New Scientist podcast used a professional American DJ. Everybody hated it, so they pulled the plug and did it in-house with just a couple people. Eliminated the fancy audio work and effects and had much better reception.

Podcasts can complement existing content…

* Raise interest in your company/mission
* Deliver same content you use elsewhere, but in audio version
* Deliver supplementary/bonus content on top of your normal content.

Pros and Cons or Repurposed Content

Pros:
You already have it
“Cool factor” of being a podcaster without lots of work — if podcasting is still cool :)
Can go places you never expected — other media platforms/networks may discover and licensing your stuff

Cons:
Your stuff (lectures, conferences, etc.) might be boring
Uses bandwidth ($$$)
You can’t control what happens to it. People will take it and do what they want. You may not get proper credit.

Lessons Learned: CONTENT

Finding the right music is important. Best choice is mid-range “production” music: firstcom, soundsdogs, digital juice

Don’t try to imitate NPR, PBS, or other major media. They’ve been doing this longer than you and they’ve got way better equipment. You won’t sound as good and your audience probably doesn’t want a clone of them anyway. Be true to yourself.

Tools: Audio Editing Software

Audacity, free on all platforms

GarageBand, free on Macs

Tools: Microphones

Blue Snowball ($100, USB)

MXL ($100-300, USB)

R0DE ($200-300, USB)

Sony ECM-MS907 ($80 field mic)

Microphones are highly variable and personal. A $300 mic might beat a $1000+ plus mic for you.

Tools: Advanced Gear

For podcasts with more than one person, you probably want a mixer with pre-amp, Firewire card to record individual channels, more mics, etc.

Podcasting Via Skype

Best quality is Skype-to-Skype, not cell or landlines.

Recording Skype:
* AudioHijackPro (Mac)
* Pamela (PC)
* Use a mixer with another computer.

Video Podcasts

MicrobeWorld Video Podcast started 2007

No host, just clips & soundbites from researchers and piece them together.

1 podcast feed, upload to 12 video sharing sites.

Deliver content in multiple file formats — some people or institutions lock down their software so can only view certain types.

55 episodes to date

Video Equipment

Digital Camera, tripod/rails, mics & software as for audio, lights, lots of tapes & hard drives.

Learning Curve

Takes 6-12 months (up to a lifetime!) to learn to record & edit video

Editing takes 20-50 hours per project, ~45 to compress/render per file format. Online distribution/marketing takes ~8 hours.

Hosting Options

Can store podcasts on own servers, but can be expensive

Or use a traditional hosting service — can be risky if they’re not tooled up for your bandwidth

Or use a podcast/CDN specific to media hosting. Less control, but they’re inexpensive and low-risk.

Distribution / RSS

Many services offer easy feed creation:
* LibSyn
* Blip.tv
* Blubrry

Desktop RSS software
* FeedForAll

Don’t forget to tag your content: ID3 tags, RSS tags, iTunes tags.

Note: See all my notes from Internet Summit 2011 by clicking here.

Live notes from Willam Blackmon’s & Greg Gunn’s talk about “Using Twitter and LinkedIn to Pump Up Your Marketing Strategy” at Internet Summit 2011 in Raleigh on 2011-11-15.

(note from Justin: I walked in 10 minutes late — a few items are missing at the top of William’s part. Sorry!)

William Blackmon, CEO of LinkMeIn

LinkedIn Company Pages.  Example: Comcast Business Class

You can promote your activities (new LinkedIn feature a couple weeks ago)

People see stellar employee presence. Profile links to key employees in your company.

Can also use tabs for Careers, Products & Services, and Analytics.

Services tab - can showcase Services and Products, can add Featured Services that are highlighted.

Ask for recommendations from users & clients.

LinkedIn now offers Analytics. People looking at your page can actually check our your company’s activity/popularity.

Direct Ads. Ads on LinkedIn tend to work.

Recommendations by Fans. Can pay for requests for recommendations to appear on followers’ pages. Results for HP: Recommendation Ads accelerate results.

Following. Companies & Individuals can purchase an add that encourages people to follow your company. Comcast gained thousands of followers this way in a few weeks.

Company Status. More followers lets you deliver your message to more people.

Plugins. All free!
* Share button on your website lets people share your content on LinkedIn.
* Recommend button on your website.
* Digital business card signature in your email.
* Company LinkedIn page widget on your website.

LinkedIn Best Practices:

* Complete, Consistent, and Compelling profile. Personal and Company.”
* Connect with people: Use personalized messages, not the LinkedIn default message. Offer them something but expect nothing back!
* Follow-up with gratitude
* Get involved in groups. At least pick out a few where your clients hang around (not necessarily your competitors)
* Expand to partners and vendors. Get connected with more than just your clients/fanbase. 
* SEO with keywords on your profile.

Greg Gunn, VP of Business Development @HootSuite

@gunnr

Social Business: Monitoring and Measuring

There’s a tremendous amount of volume in Twitter. How do you find the connections and information that’s relevant to you (and your customers)? It’s difficult, but there are tactics & strategies you can employ.

Agenda:
* Landscape
* Monitoring & Measuring
* Tactics

Landscape

Social media is growing even faster every day. LinkedIn took years to get to 10million users. Google+ took 16 days.

107 trillion emails sent in 2010. 89% of them are spam though :-/.

Time spent using web-based email is declining really really sharply by age group. -59% among age 12-17 for instance.

People are spending more and more time online on social sites. More time on Facebook & Twitter versus finding things through search engines.

Monitoring & Measuring

Listen before you do anything.

Focus. Hashtag searchs, localized searches, etc.

Listening. Understand the terminology and lexicon of the crowd you’re talking to. Don’t dress wrong for the party.

Engage. Be authentic and personal. Acknowledge people who are talking about you.

Schedule. Queue tweets, etc. to go out regularly, targeted for your targets’ local timezone if that matters.

Other tools: Quora, Instagram, 4square.

Out of time for this talk! Oops! :) Follow Greg on Twitter or catch him around the conference to learn more!

Note: See all my notes from Internet Summit 2011 by clicking here.

Here are my quick and dirty live notes from Todd Moy’s talk at the ISUM2011 conference on 2011-15-2011. Thanks, Todd!

Apologies for the formatting — this is a crude copy & paste…