Danny Brown

podcaster - author - creator

Latest posts from Danny Brown

Enjoy the latest posts from Danny Brown, and feel free to add your own thoughts in the comments after the post.

Building Forts

Forts were built for a reason – to keep invaders out. Yet if the invaders came with numbers prepared for a siege, forts also left you trapped inside, unable to make your escape until you either surrendered or died from starvation.

When you’re building your business, you may be looking at your growing empire as your own personal fort, keeping you safe from competitors. Just make sure you don’t get barricaded in and trapped from innovation by being too protected from your competitors. 

Innovation comes from awareness. Awareness comes from seeing what’s going on around you. Can you see past the walls of your fort?

 

Seesmic Web Ups Ante for Twitter Management Tools

Seesmic have just released the preview version of Seesmic Web for Twitter. A web-based version of their hugely popular Seesmic Desktop desktop app, Seesmic Web also has some pretty cool new features not found on the desktop version.

The first (and really useful) difference is the threaded conversation option for direct messages. Now you don’t have to worry about trying to remember what you said to someone previously – it’s all there for you.

The next option is a rollover view of a particular user’s basic Twitter stats (followers/following). You can expand on this by clicking on the Profile tab and get the full bio details.

Some of the other features include:

  • Single column mode (ideal for web users of the Twitter service for whom multi-columns on Seesmic Desktop and Tweetdeck are hard to manage).
  • Search option where all your searches will also be saved to your main Twitter account.
  • Unlimited columns, all with the ability to minimize window.
  • Access from any computer.

Anyone that follows me on Twitter knows I’m a huge advocate for Seesmic Desktop. I like?Tweetdeck , but I just find Seesmic more suited to my use.

With the preview launch of their web-based version, Seesmic are making Twitter management easier again and I can see this being really popular with all levels of users.

While it’s currently missing some desktop features (the most obvious two being the Group option and Block User), it solves the memory suck issue of most desktop apps in one step – ?a major bonus. And as it’s in preview mode, these features may yet be added.

What do you think? Nice move by Seesmic or not enough to take you away from your current desktop application? Will Seesmic Web offer current Twitter web users a good alternative and introduction to management tools? Can you see yourself using it?

  • Update: John Haydon made a really cool video on blip.tv on how to use Seesmic Web. I’ve embedded it below as it’s a nice overview of some of Seesmic Web’s features.

Evian Shows Traditional Media and Advertising Far From Dead

There’s a lot being said about traditional media suffering in the wake of social media acceptance. Print publications, advertising, marketing et al – they all need to “use social media or die” being a common mantra.

But I’m not so sure. Yes, adapt and combine the new tools and mediums available to you. But to say that mainstream media is dead on its feet seems to be a bit of a push, particularly when many average consumers aren’t even aware of social media in its many shapes and sizes.

Emphasizing this point is Evian’s new video advertising campaign. Playing up to the mineral water producer’s Live Young tagline, Evian are currently running a set of commercials featuring babies. But these are no normal, “Aww, look at the cute baby” videos.

Instead, they’re smart, funny and hip in a way that many people would say traditional advertiser’s have forgotten how to be. Not to mention an excellent reminder that traditional media still does many things better than social media.

What do you think about the ads? Does entertaining make you more or less likely to buy from a company? What other companies are using combined advertising as well as Evian?

(Thanks to Wicked Lil Pixie for the heads up on the videos).

Tagging Your Online Identity with Retaggr

If you’re on so many social networks you’re losing track, ?or you don’t even know where half your early network memberships are, you might want to check out?Retaggr.

Similar to Google Profiles, Zooity and MyBlogLog, Retaggr condenses all your online information into one handy place. Yet once you start messing around with Retaggr, you see it’s a lot more than a simple online contact hub.

As well as giving you the option to save all your profiles in one place, Retaggr acts as the ultimate social business card. Your contact details, work address, website, blog, street map and more are instantly available.

It also shows what blogs you’re reading, what you’re discussing around the web, multimedia uploads, your latest blog feed and online resume service just to name a few. You can then use that information on a handy business card that you can place on your blog or website. Check the Retaggr card under my short bio to the right, or the main card on my About page to see how it looks.

While Google Profiles shares similar ideas, the interactivity of Retaggr makes it a completely different beast.

You can email someone directly from their business card; join in an IM chat; listen to their music library on the likes of Blip.fm and much, much more.

As you can probably tell, I’m impressed. Even though Retaggr has been out a little while now, they continue to add to and improve their features. If you’re serious about your online presence, I can’t recommend Retaggr enough – it really is that cool.

Check out Retaggr for yourself or have a look at my extended profile and let me know what you think – useful? Will you use it or give it a miss?

Sponsored Tweets and IZEA – Is This Twitter’s Future?

Ted MurphyI caught a tweet from Ted Murphy today, about how a celebrity was paid $2,500 to post a sponsored tweet.

Ted is the founder and CEO of IZEA, the company that owns SocialSpark and PayPerPost.

Both SocialSpark and PayPerPost offer bloggers the chance to earn money from paid product reviews.

It’s a contentious topic that generally splits blogger opinion down the middle, with both sides offering valid reasons for their views for and against sponsored posts or paid blogging. Personally, I’m neither here nor there on the topic as long as it’s handled properly.

Now it seems as if Twitter is IZEA’s latest target, with pre-launch details of SponsoredTweets allowing Twitter users to sign up for the service in readiness for its launch in a few weeks.

The way it works is simple. You sign up, set your price and tag your profile, and then wait for advertisers to offer you their details for an agreed price. You then tweet their message and get paid. Everybody’s happy – the advertiser gets eyeballs and the Twitter user gets money.

But will everybody be happy? Probably not.

Advertisers are already using sponsored tweets to get their message across. One in particular, Magpie, seemed to unilaterally piss off the majority of the Twitter community with its invasive ads (although this may have had more to do with the fact they changed their policy and didn’t require publishers to disclose it was a sponsored tweet).

At least with IZEA’s?approach, all publishers need to disclose their relationship to the advertiser and that the tweet in question is sponsored (much like the company’s blogger requirements).

Yet it looks like IZEA might suffer the same problem as Magpie – the fact that non-users of the service can’t opt out of seeing the ads in their Twitter stream. Sure, you can always unfollow someone if their sponsored tweets get too much – but is that really the best solution?

Perhaps this is where Twitter use will diverge and the service will be monetized. There’s been talk of premium Twitter accounts for a while – would that work?

You could still have a free account but expect to see unwanted ads in your stream. Or, have a premium account and filter the ads out – see your friend’s normal tweets but not ones with ads in them. Whether this would be feasible or not is another thing, but it’s an idea.

What’s your take? Is IZEA’s sponsored tweets service a welcome addition or more noise to the Twitter stream? Would you offer your Twitter account for advertising or keep your tweets from you and you alone?

Creative Commons License photo credit:?tedmurphy