The Social Path

The price of my soul? $33.82 a month, apparently.

As someone who works in advertising and marketing, I sometimes wonder if I should be a bit more understanding of schemes that let people lease out every square inch of their lives to the corporate world.

But there's just something undeniably off-putting about things like Magpie, a new service that lets you sell ads on your Twitter feed.

The amount you're paid is determined by the number of people who follow you  on the micro-blogging site.

(As you can see, I qualify for up to 26.70 Euros a month, or $33.82 in Earthling dollars.)

I'm sure there are people jumping to take advantage of this and scrape in a few extra bucks. (As ReadWriteWeb points out, you can also sell ads on your Twitter background.) And hey, if it helps them stave off foreclosure or keep the lights on in this economy, more power to 'em.

But come on, marketing folks, this is why cool kids don't invite us to their parties. This is why people think a new technology is only worthwhile until the creepy, windowless white van pulls up and the advertising guys get out with handfuls of candy.

Want to make money on Twitter? No problem. Start an official account or two for your business and use them in ways that customers or potential customers will find helpful. Communicate, share, have a contest, show off your human side. Do it right, and you'll increase customer loyalty while driving up sales.

Oh well, I suppose this is all a victimless crime for now. I wouldn't sell ads on my feed, buy ads on a feed or follow someone who put ads in their feed.

Maybe I'm just playing hardball and holding out for a better offer than $34 a month (rounded up to make me feel better about myself).

Blog feed massacre: Only the strong survive.

Once you discover the magic of RSS — the ability to read all your favorite blogs and news sites in one place —  you’re bound to get carried away. Within a few weeks, you’ve probably packed your Google Reader with a bustling armada of blog posts that can be downright intimidating.

That’s when it’s time to bring out the machete and start culling feeds like they’re horny teens at Camp Crystal Lake.

Recently, the delightful Irene Alvarez at Experience Columbus mentioned that she was paring back her RSS feeds, so I jumped at the chance to see what factors she considered in her blogger bloodbath.

If you’ve got a blog, and you want to keep your subscribers happy, you’d best check out Irene’s list after the jump.

What virtual zombies can teach us about the bad economy.

In one of my all-time favorite crossovers of a virtual world and real life, blogger Christopher S. Penn has drafted a list called "6 tips for surviving a recession, taught by World of Warcraft zombies.”

To promote its new “Wrath of the Lich King” expansion (which, by the way, has a truly incredible trailer), the makers of World of Warcraft decided to have a zombie plague strike the massively multiplayer game.

The zombie outbreak made the game pretty tough for a few days, but the challenge went far beyond protecting your brains from the ravenous undead.

Christopher explains:

"The zombie invasion also destroyed players’ access to the in-game Auction House, which is more or less the hub of the Warcraft economy and the central free marketplace. However, instead of banks not lending, the zombie invasion simply killed off all the auctioneers and auction managers. The net effect, however, was the same as in the real world economy - players, teams, and guilds were effectively denied access to the marketplace, credit, and trade."

So players had to change how they approached money, possessions and basic survival.

Looking at those who thrived (or at least survived), Christopher noticed some trends that are eerily applicable to our own economic crunch:

1. Hoard cash
2. Stay away from danger.
3. Make powerful friends.
4. Go back to basics.
5. Cash is king.
6. There is an end.

It’s a great read, even for those of us who don’t dabble in the stock market or in online role-playing games. Oh, and speaking of zombies and World of Warcraft, here’s a video throwback that’s still as funny as it was a few years back. Happy Halloween!

Eight screenshot tools to help you save entire Web sites.

This week, I had to make a screenshot of an entire Web site (instead of just what was on my screen). There are a bunch of tools to take care of this, but I quickly realized that most of my old standbys from previous years are out of commission or just woefully out of date.

So I asked the crowd on Twitter for tips, and I decided to turn this results into the Cool Tools of the Week.

Reccommended:

• Screengrab! — This plugin for the Firefox Web browser is the one I ended up using. Once installed, it took me a minute to find the Screengrab icon, which was hiding on the bottom right of my browser window. But then it worked like a charm. (Note: Be sure to save your screenshots as .PNG files, not .JPG. There's a noticeable quality difference.)

If you're curious, here's the beautiful thing I ended up creating with the screenshot, based on Mack Collier's recent blogger-outreach case study.

• Paparazzi - This downloadable Mac program was simple to set up and tremendously easy to use. If I weren't using Firefox, I'd happily use this as my screenshot of choice. 

Not recommended:

• Fireshot - Another Firefox plugin, but I couldn't get this one to work. I was hit with multiple errors and had to uninstall. That said, several people find it fully functional and seem to like it.

Other options (that I couldn't try):

• Screenshot Captor - This one seems nice, but it's for Windows, and I was too lazy to try it on my home PC. I love you guys and all, but....

• The full version of Adobe Reader has a screenshot feature, I've been told, although it was hard to find it in the online feature list. But I did find this cool "share your screen" function that's currently in beta.

• Got a master's degree in computer science and hate not to use it? Try wget. But it hurts my paltry liberal-arts-schooled brain.

• SnagIt - Another bit of Windows software, and it costs money. But there's a 30-day free trial if you want to give it a shot. 

• Irfanview - A feature-rich graphic viewer for Windows. Scans, converts, optimizes, makes slideshows, etc. Seems quite cool.

Big thanks to everyone from Twitter who submitted a suggestion: Jeremy Gordinier, Chris Hoppel, adsmguy, Sue Cline, Jeremy Flint, Len Damico, Ike Pigott, Chris Mitchell, Deontée Gordon, Laura P. Thomas, and Gary Moneysmith.

Virtual justice: Woman jailed for 'killing' her 'husband.'

Had to share this news tidbit, sent to me by Luckie designer Tim Kolankiewicz:

TOKYO – A 43-year-old player in a virtual game world became so angry about her sudden divorce from her online husband that she logged on with his password and killed his digital persona, police said Thursday.

The woman, who has been jailed on suspicion of illegally accessing a computer and manipulating electronic data, used his ID and password to log onto the popular interactive game "Maple Story" to carry out the virtual murder in May, a police official in the northern city of Sapporo said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of department policy.

You can read the whole story here. I'm just upset she was charged with "inappropriate computer access" — not something cool, like "avataracide."

More critics are cropping up online. Are businesses ready?

Critics, creators and spectators are all on the rise in social media, according to a new report from Forrester Research’s Josh Bernoff.

Bernoff looked at the number of “US online adults” who are using social tools. The overall percentage rose from a little over half in 2007 to three-quarters in 2008.

To help visualize the different types of social media users, Forrester created this excellent visual last year:

The new data showed that every category — except “Inactives” — grew in the past year as a percentage of Web users.

Check out the year-over-year numbers:

While a few more people have made the always-intimidating jump to “Creator”, what surprised me was the growth of the “Critics” category.

There’s nothing new about letting people review products online, but it definitely seems to be an increasingly mainstream activity.

So what does this mean to businesses trying to use social media? If you’re one of them, here are a few questions to ask yourself:

1. Have you given your visitors or customers any way to weigh in on your products through your own site? And no, listing an e-mail address on your “Contact Us” page doesn’t really count.

2. Do you know where and how your products or services are being critiqued? Such reviews used to be limited to books, movies and hotels. These days, you can review anything from dentists to day cares.

3. All these reviews — even the bad ones that make you cringe — are creating priceless data. Are you incorporating it into your research, development and planning?

Considering an iPhone or G1? Ask yourself these questions.

It’s been a few months since I picked up an iPhone 3G, and I only now feel qualified to weigh in on whether it’s a worthwhile purchase.

It’s a sharp little device for sure, one that can be a surprisingly helpful addition to your work life or social life. 

But with the intense price tag and the impending arrival of next-generation phones built on Google’s Android platform, is it worth getting an iPhone? Or hell, is it worth getting a smart phone at all?

A few questions to ask yourself, with some thoughts after the jump:

1. Are you just overflowing with cash?

2. Do you travel a lot?

3. Do you love customization and open source?

4. Do you like shooting photos and video with your phone?

5. Are you patient?

Blog Action Day: How social media can bring about change.

Today is Blog Action Day, an event aimed at starting a worldwide discussion of poverty. As I write this, more than 11,000 sites have already taken part, bringing the message to an audience of in excess of 12 million people. (And the day is young!)

Here in Alabama, poverty is never a distant problem. Our state has made great strides in equality, though the gap between our richest and poorest residents remains the second largest in the nation. But even here in the Southeast, it can be easy to overlook the daily hardship on our rural neighbors.

Meanwhile, more than 1 billion people worldwide are living in extreme poverty, and recent spikes in food prices are driving an estimated 100 million more people toward malnourishment and starvation.

So what can we do, other than sit around blogging about it?

On the local level, you can help support groups that help improve life for the needy among us. If you live around Birmingham, we’d love to have you join our Facebook volunteer group for The Table, a wonderful nonprofit that feeds the homeless and hungry.

We've also been deeply involved in this year's Live United fund-raising campaign for United Way of Central Alabama, which offers countless vital services to our area's most at-risk residents.

On a global level, consider lending $25 or so to an ambitious third-world entrepreneur through Kiva.org. The site lets you make small, interest-free loans that can help recipients expand small businesses or buy supplies to launch a new shop. (Pictured at right is   Adzoto Gadzo of Togo, one of 14 Kiva borrowers my wife and I have lended to since starting an account in our daughter's name at Christmas. We've had a 100% repayment rate.)

To celebrate Blog Action Day, I’ve created a new Kiva Team called Social Media For Change. If you’re reading this, then you qualify for membership, so join the team today and invite your friends. Together, we can raise thousands of dollars and help create a ripple effect that brings hundreds of people out of poverty.

RELATED: Check out Advergirl's fantastic writeup for Blog Action Day (and I'm not just saying that because I make a cameo).

Hooray! People actually want businesses on social media.

I think we can all agree that social media is a rapidly growing field with endless potential and revolutionary implications for blah blah blah.

That’s all fine and good. But here’s a tough question that marketing guys like me never want to ask: Do people want us here? Or are we just doing what the ad industry has always done best — shoving our nose into everything, heedless of invitation.

Well, good news, everyone. Social media users don’t just tolerate businesses getting involved; they actually want to see companies wading into the fray and having conversations.

According to the 2008 Cone Busienss in Social Media Study, about 60 percent of Americans now use social media.

Among those active social media users, the report found:

• 93% believe a company should have a presence in social media
• 85% think a company should interact with customers via social media
• 43% say companies should use social media to solve customers’ problems (ie, customer service and tech support)
• 41% want companies to solicit feedback from customers on products and services
• 37% think companies should develop new ways to interact with their brand

But here’s a stat that might be more cautionary than encouraging:

• 25% want companies to market to consumers through social media

That means that when your business ventures out into social media in hopes of making a sales pitch, you should be ready for 75% of your audience to be unreceptive.

That’s not to say you can’t or shouldn’t be using social sites to rack up sales. You just can’t treat it like an advertising or PR blitz. Show them your product, ask for their feedback, and be willing to respond.

Then you won’t just be tolerated. You’ll be appreciated.

See? Told you I was right about Planet Money.

Just a few days after telling all of you why I'm such a big fan of NPR's new social-powered Planet Money podcast, I had the privilege of appearing on the show myself.

No, they didn’t turn to me for probing analysis of the world markets. But they were responding to an e-mail I had sent them earlier in the day. I asked for their opinion of Jim Cramer’s “get out of the stock market” comments.

After receiving my e-mail, podcast hosts Laura Conaway and Adam Davidson actually called me up to have me ask the question on air. You can hear their response by listening to the podcast here (under the picture of the woman in a bikini and a guy in a bear suit). My question comes in around the 20:20 mark, if you’d like to skip right to it.

While this kind of direct response perfectly illustrates why I was praising Planet Money, I thought it was especially nice that they even took the time to thank me via Twitter.

So cheers (again) to the classy and socially savvy folks over at NPR.