Yahoo was the double-secret 800-pound gorilla in the room, along with AOL and MSN, until now.  It looks like Facebook is now besting Yahoo!, Mr. Old Reliable, according to The Next Web and Comscore:

I am buying my mom an Apple iPad for mother’s day.  A little belated as I am still in Berlin.  I will grab her one next weekend from the Arlington Apple store.

My mum seems, to me, like the perfect demographic for the iPad:  Not a touch typist.  Interested in casually checking email and the web.

I will report on how well she adopts it.  For her, it is even better than the netbook.  What I assume will happen — my projection — is that she will keep it by her chair, near the TV, and be able to snack on Internet content, never needing to take it from where it will probably live — right there.

I can see mum maybe even taking to Twitter or even Facebook now that it can easily be contained in an app.  I have already set her up on Facebook and Twitter but she doesn’t use it because she is still in the AOL state of mind.

She’s already asking me about apps and what apps are and has been fully branded on the concept of the app store.

I will set her up on iTunes and the App Store, though she might as just as easily set herself up on that.  In fact, I am pretty much going to try to let her — encourage her — to set up the iPad solo so she gets a feel for it — and I want to see how intuitively the iPad is generally set up to set up.

Also, as far as getting her the $499 version, bottom of the line, I don’t think it will matter as she’s (probably) not going to start downloading music, using it as an iPod, or watching her movies on it so I am looking forward to seeing if it is enough.

I mean, she might start downloading tons of Apps or maybe the iPad caches a lot of content on the solid state drive and I will find out over time that the 16GB Wi-Fi model is insufficient.  If that’s so, I might just inherit the 16GB and then see if the 32GB model meets her needs.

Who knows — she might very well end up being a power user!

Latest news from my client over at Abraham Harrison — Motionbox, “announced Motionbox PRO. Intended for businesses and other organizations seeking to share video with selected users, Motionbox PRO fills a previously unmet need in the video sharing market.”

Thomson Reuters and Gawker Media among the first to sign up for the new commercial version of Motionbox’s acclaimed video service

New York, NY (PRWEB) November 4, 2009 — Motionbox, the leading personal video sharing service, today announced Motionbox PRO. Intended for businesses and other organizations seeking to share video with selected users, Motionbox PRO fills a previously unmet need in the video sharing market. Professional users were flocking to Motionbox because of its virtually unlimited storage and full screen HD playback, but needed the ability to upload and share commercial content in an unbranded, high quality player. Motionbox PRO answers that demand.

Motionbox PRO provides a comprehensive video hosting solution that includes archival storage, web-based editing, streaming and embedding, all in superior quality, up to 1080p HD. Commercial customers will receive best-in-the-industry support for HD formats and pricing that is significantly lower than that of competitors in the commercial video sharing market.

“Reuters is committed to exploring innovative new ways of disseminating news and information, and applauds Motionbox for their easy to use upload tools and web-based editing.

The introduction of Motionbox PRO comes as a response to a wide range of Motionbox customers, including real estate agents, film production companies, and small businesses in search of an affordable professional video hosting solution.

Motionbox PRO also comes in a version for larger Enterprises, and among the pre-launch customers to move to Motionbox’s new PRO version are Thomson Reuters and Gawker Media.
“Reuters is committed to exploring innovative new ways of disseminating news and information, and applauds Motionbox for their easy to use upload tools and web-based editing. Using Motionbox, Reuters’ journalists are able to get the most current video content distributed to Reuters’ readers and clients,” said Chris Cramer, Global Editor, Multimedia, Reuters.

Tom Plunkett, CTO of Gawker Media said, “Gawker manages a number of blogs that all use video content avidly. We chose Motionbox because of the customizability of the platform and because Motionbox HD video quality is the best out there.”

Coming on the heels of Motionbox’s partnership with Shutterfly and its acquisition of Viddyou, the release of Motionbox PRO caps a year of strong growth for the New York-based company, which enables millions of users to share their video memories privately and securely with friends and family.

To learn more about Motionbox PRO, log on to: http://www.motionbox.com/content/pro

About Motionbox
Motionbox enables individuals and families to easily upload, edit, store, and share their personal video memories, including those that have been captured in High Definition. In addition to free membership options on Motionbox.com and via partners such as Shutterfly, Bebo, and AOL Video, Motionbox provides a subscription-based Premium service featuring HD playback and sharing, unlimited archival storage, and download capabilities. Motionbox also offers hard-good products that allow consumers to enjoy personal videos beyond devices and computers. Visit http://www.motionbox.com/ for more information.

PRESS CONTACT:
Dan Krueger
Abraham & Harrison Public Relations
dkrueger (at) chrisabraham (dot) com

&

Stephanie Mello
Motionbox, Public Relations Manager
stephanie.mello (at) motionbox (dot) com

###

Via PRWeb and Motionbox

I am happy to announce that our client, Motionbox.com, recently acquired the personal video-sharing service, Viddyou, which is very cool and something we’re excited to share:

Motionbox announces Acquisition of Viddyou, Inc. Personal Video Sharing Service

Acquisition to accelerate Motionbox growth and provide new home for Viddyou customers.

New York, NEW YORK – October 8, 2009 — Motionbox, the leading personal video sharing service, today announced the acquisition of Viddyou personal video service. Motionbox features easy-to-use online editing tools, secure storage, advanced privacy controls, and full HD video capabilities.

“Motionbox’s HD quality, ease of use, privacy, great customer service and top tier partners like AOL, Shutterfly and Bebo have rapidly established them as the leader in personal video,” said Viddyou founder and CEO Aaron Wadler, “so it is with great pride that we are able to join Motionbox to enhance our vision of creating a high-quality easy-to-use destination for the personal video sharing community. ”

“Motionbox has been very impressed by the great user experience and video technology that Viddyou has built, along with a loyal customer base,” said Josh Grotstein, Motionbox CEO, “Motionbox and Viddyou share a common mission: to provide customers with a secure home for their precious video memories. We are very glad to welcome the Viddyou customers and team to the Motionbox family.”

Motionbox and Viddyou are working closely to assure that the transition for Viddyou customers is easy and seamless. Existing Viddyou users will be offered the opportunity to move their account information and videos to Motionbox. Viddyou Premium users will be granted Motionbox Premium subscriptions.

Viddyou customers can expect an elevated level of video performance, enhanced feature sets and superior customer service, opening the door for even greater customer loyalty.

The acquisition comes at a time of great growth for Motionbox and solidifies their position as a leader in personal video sharing.

About Motionbox:
Motionbox enables individuals and families to easily upload, edit, store, and share their personal video memories, including those that have been captured in High Definition. In addition to free membership options on Motionbox.com and via partners such as Shutterfly, Bebo, and AOL Video, Motionbox provides a subscription-based Premium service featuring HD playback and sharing, unlimited archival storage, and
download capabilities. Motionbox also offers hard-good products that allow consumers to enjoy personal videos beyond devices and computers.

Visit http://www.motionbox.com for more information.

Contact Information
Stephanie Mello
Motionbox, Inc
http://www.motionbox.com
646-442-8743

Please visit Abraham Harrison’s Social Media News Release (SMNR) for Motionbox:  http://motionboxnews.com

We’re happy to be working with Motionbox — and we at Abraham Harrison are in the process of checking out the Motionbox premium service — and I thought I would share the content of the Social Media Release (SMR) we produced for them and share with you the video sharing services the offer.  Motionbox is an awesome alternative to YouTube because of their ability to support and share HD video and because they have privacy settings that are much easier for folks to use if they just want to share their videos amongst their friends and family as opposed to the entire globe.

SMNR: Motionbox: Finally an easy way to share your videos online

At Motionbox, we love video. Video as a way to share the winning shot with the whole team. Video as a way to watch his first birthday over and over. Video as a creative outlet. Video as a business tool. Click here to get $10 off of a Premium Account!

We’re passionate about what we do, and are proud to offer the highest quality personal video sharing service on the Web. We work hard every day to make sure you have the tools, technology, and support you need to share your video memories the way you’ve been sharing photos for years.

What is Motionbox?

Motionbox makes it easy for individuals and families to upload, edit, store, and share their personal video memories, including those that have been captured in High Definition. In addition to free membership options, Motionbox a subscription-based Premium service featuring HD playback and sharing, unlimited storage, and download capabilities, and a Professional video hosting solution for small businesses and organizations.

Motionbox powers video publishing and sharing for several partners, including AOL Video, Bebo, and Shutterfly. Click here to get $10 off of a Premium Account!

Motiobox News

October 15, 2009
Motionbox introduces Motionbox PRO, a professional video hosting solution for small businesses and professional bloggers.

• White label embeddable HD player
• Unlimited streaming
• Unlimited archival storage
• 30-day trial period
• Commercial content welcome

October 8, 2009
Motionbox Announces Acquisition of Viddyou, Inc. Personal Video Sharing Service

September 23, 2009
Shutterfly has expanded its relationship with Motionbox, bringing video publishing tools to all Shutterfly account holders. Users can now upload videos to their  Shutterfly accounts and share them with friends and family via email. Since May, 2009, Motionbox has powered video on Shutterfly Share sites, enabling users to publish videos to their personal web sites.

June 15, 2009
Motionbox Selected as Video Partner for Shutterfly Share Sites

Motionbox Services

Easy Video Uploading: Motionbox offers two ways to get video files off the computer and in front of friends and family: a simple, browser based uploader and the Motionbox Express Uploader (MxU), a desktop tool that makes it drag-n-drop easy to upload videos to Motionbox.

Online Video Editing: Easy-to-use, web-based editing tools let you rotate, trim, or combine video clips – no software downloads required.

Advanced Privacy Settings: Motionbox makes it easy to share videos with a select group of viewers instead of broadcasting to the world.

Secure Video Sharing: Email videos to friends and family, or connect Motionbox to your Facebook account to post videos automatically to your newsfeed. Videos are never displayed next to unrelated content by people you don’t know.

HD Playback: The embeddable MotionboxHD playerfeatures crystal clear resolution and full screen playback.We accept HD video up to 1080p in any number of ratios.

Video Flipbooks and DVDs: Transform personal videos into professionally formatted DVDs or retro-cool flipbooks – pocket-sized books you animate in the palm of your hand.

Professional Video Hosting: Motionbox PRO is an affordable hosting solution for professional, business, or commercial video content.

Support for Multiple Formats: Motionbox supports more video formats — including AVCHD and video shot on the iPhone — than any other video sharing service on the web.

Click here to get $10 off of a Premium Account!

Motionbox Member Testimonial

I really like the ease and simplicity. With some programs, it’s so difficult and you’re so frustrated by the time you get anything accomplished. I haven’t run into any moments like that with Motionbox. It’s fast, it’s easy. I can sit down and enjoy it while I’m doing it. I love it.

I just uploaded a video of our new baby girl late last night and the video was taken on my cheap-o point and shoot while we were in the delivery room. The HD version is so clear, and the full screen is unBELIEVABLE! I mean, seriously you guys! This rocks.

The quality of picture on your widescreen player is fantastic. Well done.

Click here to get $10 off of a Premium Account!

Adam is an insightful fellow. He put into words what I have been thinking: celebrities are not ruining Twitter because nobody is forced to follow celebs — or anyone — on Twitter. Please read Celebrities Are Not Taking Over Twitter for the rest of the below insightful excerpt:

Celebrities like Ashton Kutcher, Shaquille O’Neal and Britney Spears are not taking over Twitter.  A well publicized event like Oprah tweeting on her show won’t help.  Ashton vs. Larry King, in a contest to see which account, @aplusk (“a plus k”) or @cnnbrk can reach a million followers first is a publicity event that had lots of benefits for both in terms of building large networks, but they are not taking over.  Any way you slice it, their efforts are futile. They can’t take over Twitter because of one simple fact: people choose who they follow.

The Twitterati Version 1 are bitter and jealous but they should be ecstatic because they,  the first Twitterati, were, in fact, ground zero for something that has taken the world by storm.

It is the same for Internet Denizens Version 1 complaining as the unwashed AOL members flooded into USENET.

What Adam might be saying and I am surely stating is that this break out is good and that there is still plenty of room in Twitter to hide in plain site.  Additionally, there is little or no use complaining.

We not only must compete with the Ashton Kutchers and Oprahs of the world but we are also dealing with their media machine, their publicists, their networks and their studios as well — in addition to the obvious equity that they’re happy to cash in from their other media platforms to spend of Twelebrity.

I am amazed that after three years and acruing “merely” 6,347 Followers, I have chosen to spend my time well by investing in 140 characters x 16,210 tweets, resulting in around 2,269,400 characters.

So, heaven forbid I had spent all of that energy in Pownce, which has died, instead of the winner, Twitter — now that would be a waste.

Unlike my blog, which is surely my very own intellectual property that I can maintain forever, my Twitter content is dependent on the health of Twitter. So, I feel blessed, amazed, and triumphant that Twitter has become de rigeur in the world of online media outreach, content-sharing, and community outreach.

Via Search Engine Journal, Oscars Predictions for 2009 Winners Online:

• AOL’s MovieFone 2009 Oscar Predictions : AOL has put together a slideshow of their Oscar Pool predictions and have picked Penelope Cruz for Best Supporting Actress & Sean Penn as Best Actor from the film Milk.
• Oscar Frenzy : A blog crazy about the Oscars with their predictions list and a vibrant commenting frenzy, Oscar Frenzy has gone against the grain and predicted that Revolutionary Road will win the Best Picture.
• MSN Movies : MSN, like most other online entertainment sites, is not predicting that Mickey Rourke will win Best Actor, and feels that Sean Penn will win it for Milk, although they say Rourke should win because he has earned it.
• Oscars on Go.com : Of course since ABC is hosting the actors they can’t really predict the winners without there being any controversy, but they have set up the Official Oscars site with live streaming of the Oscars and the Red Carpet festivities.

This news is from the hasn’t this already happened before department?  Also, from the I can’t believe it took this long department. Via the Washington Post.

Yahoo chief executive Jerry Yang will step down, the company announced last night, as the once-highflying Internet portal struggles to steady itself in the turbulent environment for Web media.

Yahoo! should be one of the coolest brands on the block.  With Flickr and del.icio.us, Yahoo really should be #2 — and it could be #1 if it would stop with the self-loathing — and it is not. Why?  Because Yahoo isn’t nearly shameless enough to survive in the 2008 Internet.  It is no longer the world of wizened Unix gurus who would easily define what is and isn’t couth on the Internet. Yahoo! is stuck in the days when it was uncool to splash your own brand on the brands you own (so is AOL); Yahoo! is stuck in the Internet of the 90s, an Internet wherein being good enough was good enough.

If Yahoo! was trying not to become gauche or become an ugly American in the Europe of the Internet, then it was successful! Yahoo! has become irrelevant. At least people hate Microsoft & AOL. Hell, I have nothing at all to say about Yahoo! except I adore del.icio.us and Flickr.  How could the owner of two of the Internet’s coolest properties never be able to harnest the gravity of these two major celestial bodies and slingshot themselves into #1?

Maybe there is too much modesty, not enough braggadocio, in the halls of Yahoo!  Maybe if you look closely, Yahoo! is the company that does no harm and does no evil.  Maybe the company who’s motto is “Don’t Be Evil,” is actually pretty shameless and far from modest. Maybe on the modern Internet (and in modern business) it is more important to say you’re doing good, being good, and being modest than it is to actually be modest.

Yahoo!, Yahoo!, Yahoo! please try your darnedest to spend more time sharing yourself with the world and less time being the best of the good citizens.  Google is absolutely shameless when it comes to all the good work they’re doing.  They are not keeping their religion to themselves, they’re not praying quietly to themselves in a bare cell, away from prying eyes!  Google is on the soapbox!  Google is bragging!  Google is sharing the Holy Spirit with the world!

If you keep on slipping those alms into the alms box of Internet Good Works by dark of night you will actually become irrelevant.  Nobody is against you but nobody is for you, either. Nobody cares.

What’s worse, I don’t think enough people even really think much about Flickr and del.icio.us being Yahoo! properties.

Yes, you make folks become Yahoo! members, but that’s not enough. In DC and Virginia, everyone has a Safeway card but nobody like to shop at Safeway — it’s only because Safeway makes it super-easy to become a member.  There is no brand loyalty, there is no passion behind the brand (OK, OK, Safeway Select pasta sauce is awesome — it is like Safeway’s Flickr), even if everyone has a Safeway scan card on their key ring.

Anyway, Yahoo!, I am so sorry for the rant.  Oh, also, why is it that all of my geeky friends in the Zope and Python world all want to work for Google and not for Yahoo!?  How come all of my PHP and MySQL friends ache to work for Google and not for Yahoo!  How pissed you must be to suffer that Google drank your milkshake.  They took you toys!  You, Yahoo!, where supposed to be that success story!  I mean, you were the first search engine, after all!  You were the first directory, right?

Well, it is time to get off your pity pot, kick Jerry to the curb, and again become the Yahoo! I have known you since 1994 and have loved you (although I have not used your email address since Gmail came out, sorry) and I really want you to get you some smarts.  Give me a call at +1 (202) 352-5051 or +49 (0)151 52579077 — I would be more than happy to try to help you turn this ship around!

Viel Glück

I woke up to an amazing article written by Jonathan Trenn, The fallacy of community, and I responded in a comment to a pretty passionate article and a passionate comment string, and here’s what I wrote — and I have expanded the argument below, so it is an expansion. Via Marketing Conversation.

Gosh, I don’t know what to say here… there are so many different types of communities, many of which can surely be manufactured. What every successful community requires is community leadership. Community leadership can be organic and emergent or they can be hired in the form of online community managers or facilitators. A strong leadership — people who have skin in the game — is more important than a good web application; also, these community leaders are often the main draw to the community and can be the difference between keeping or losing your members when a competitor comes to town.

Here are some types of communities, as pulled from Wikipedia:

• Communities of Action
• Communities of Circumstance
• Communities of Interest
• Communities of Position
• Communities of Practice
• Communities of Purpose

Many of these can be created, in much the same way that one may create a garden. I think the biggest problem with these sort of things — community-creation — is that people do it wrong, and they have been doing it wrong for at least a decade.

Back in the day, when I worked at Caucus Systems, we manufactured communities for businesses — virtual teams, virtual conferences, and whatnot. And it worked quite well, to be sure, and they were powerful and transforming.

What most companies don’t understand is that communities require facilitators and managers. They always have. AOL hired community managers back in 1995 when they created communities, the Well and Caucus and Howard Rheingold’s Brainstorms have paid and unpaid community managers and facilitators.

The mistake that most companies make is that they assume that if they build it, they will come. It is not true. You can create a Wiki, a Message Board, Forums, or a Blog and it doesn’t mean anything at all.

In fact, people will spend all of this time putting together a message board, fill it with conversation-starters, and then open the doors, promote the hell out of it, and still nothing will happen.

What is required to manufacture a community is passionate members — and they can be paid. However, if they’re paid, you need to hire them from a pool of OD experts or a pool of topical experts — or, you can poach them from another community, always the best way.

So, WordPress and phpBB are not killer apps, the killer apps are the people who start and maintain conversation, the people who re-seed conversation, the people who catalyze conversation, the people who show interest and ask questions, and the people who protect the other members through active moderation.

In fact, I am an expert in this. You can restart an old thread, you can catalyze a conversation, you can break out an off-topic thread to a new topic hope.  It is an art, but it is an art that anyone who knows conversation, who knows facilitation, and who knows people, can do — and it happens all the time “organically” on all of the online boards we’re so in love with.

Hell, get WordPress, phpBB, or Wikimedia for free — or buy vBulletin for a little money — and put the rest of your budget towards hiring professional Community Managers.

Hell, if it weren’t for Jonathan Trenn on Marketing Conversation, we would be done for on this blog. He’s the glue and he’s the only reason why you are all here.

While very many media outlets support del.icio.us in their bookmarking and social media strategies, there has been very little innovation in the del.icio.us social bookmarking platform — this has been a major problem with properties that have been acquired by big firms such as AOL, Google, and Yahoo!, in the case of del.icio.us. Allen Stern wrote a very insightful post, Did Delicious Lose Its Chance To Be FriendFeed?, about how FriendFeed has started to take del.icio.us’ lunch based on innovation and creativity:

[...]Had Delicious (and Yahoo) moved faster on the release could they have become what’s hot with FriendFeed today? I get that FriendFeed allows you to share your delicious bookmarks. But what I am talking about here is something much bigger strategically. By “sitting” on the release, the team lost their chance to move the strategy forward.

[...]Had Yahoo wanted to actually take their Delicious investment and do something with it, how hard would it have been to add the same functionality? If we look back a year, Delicious had a much larger “buzz share” than they do today. When I look at the CN logs, we rarely see any traffic from Delicious and haven’t had a frontpage link in probably nine months. Yet in the last week, I’ve seen way more traffic from FriendFeed. Yahoo’s Delicious service has a “close to mainstream” userbase and sure missed a golden opportunity to move forward – a fail whale if you will.

[...]If you look at the topic I’ve discussed here, it’s basically what Fred Wilson discussed when he wrote about stagnation when companies acquire startups. Who will come up next and displace Upcoming and/or Flickr as the techies choice?

Oh, and be sure to join me on FriendFeed as well as del.icio.us!

“TIME WARNER is expected to propose a merger of AOL and YAHOO. TW would receive a signifiant equity stake in the combined entity, which would benefit from $1 billion in annual cost savings. NEWS CORP has been considering a similar setup for combining MySpace with Yahoo and taking a major stake in the company. Yahoo is trying to put together a deal quickly as its annual shareholder meeting approaches.” Via Shelly Palmer.

I just posted my latest-and-greatest resume onto Craig’s List: San Francisco, Washington, DC, Seattle, and New York City

Social Media, New Media, Web2.0 Strategy, and New Marketing Expert

Interested in remote projects and contracts. Also interested in Washington-area on-site consulting and contract opportunities

MISSION
My passion is to use my experience and expertise in online community outreach and advocacy to promote and protect client online brands using my years of blogging, SEO, PR, marketing, and CGM professional experience.

PROFILE
I am an expert in online outreach, advocacy and marketing with over 10 years of online experience. My experience focuses on web strategy, including SEO strategy, technology strategy, and online marketing strategy. My skills include:

- Blogger: online outreach, advocacy, conversation, and messaging, blogger relations
- Technologist: expertise in community technologies, blogs, wikis, message boards
- Salesman: entrepreneurial nature with a very strong business network and web of personal relationships
- Marketer: Over three years of online buzz marketing, online buzz marketing, and online word-of-mouth marketing
- Producer: experience in designing and developing hardware and software solutions
- Strategist: design, develop, and implement web strategies and marketing plans to reach online consumers
- Promoter: online brand promotion, virals, organic SEO (search engine optimization), and paid advertising (SEM)
- Protector: online brand protection, defensive SEO, online crisis response, and online brand management
- Teacher: Blogging instructor, guest lecturer, and online teacher since 1996

CLIENTS

- Technology Strategy reports commissioned for Deutsche Telekom
- Web Strategy document commissioned by Diversion Media for Travelistic launch
- Web Strategy document commissioned by Friendster
- Word of Mouth campaign commissioned by HostNuke for EggDisk file storage service
- Online buzz marketing proposal commissioned by Red Bricks Media for their client’s use
- Client contact for Wal-Mart’s innovative blog outreach campaign, including prospecting and messaging (Edelman)
- Co-produced successful online advocacy proposals to GE, Nissan, Shell, the American Petroleum Institute (API), and Wal-Mart Realty (Edelman)
- Developed, deployed, and launched client and internal corporate blogs, marketing blogs, vertical industry blogs, PR blogs, promotional blogs, public affairs blogs, social networks, and podcasts, including Club TomTom, New Media Sense, Extreme Mortman, and others. (NMS)
- Client service work included Sci-Fi Channel (Mad Mad House, Tripping the Rift, Battlestar Galactica), Buena Vista (Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy), TomTom, Paramount Pictures, Coca-Cola, McDonalds, Disney, Reebok, EA (UXO, Sim-City Online), RCA (American Idol CD), and NBC (Revelations), etc. (NMS)

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

Founding Partner, Abraham Harrison LLC — 10/2006-Present
- On-site training, briefing, and client pitching as online buzz marketing and SEO expert
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO) expert, focusing on both brand promotion and protection in search
- Online Buzz Marketing, Online Word-of-Mouth Marketing, and Online Viral Marketing expert
- Consulting and guiding PR and Marketing firms in their creation of Online Marketing practices
- Technology Strategy reports commissioned by COMTEG for Deutsche Telekom and T-Online
- Work and expertise partnership collaboration between crayon LLC and Abraham Harrison LLC
- Online buzz marketing proposal commissioned by Red Bricks Media for their client use
- Designed and developed opt-in membership Email and messaging campaigns
- Developed online word-of-mouth marketing strategy and tactics used on Usenet, message boards, social networks, and blogs
- Developed online advocacy and outreach campaigns for clients’ products, services, and message
- Produced internal and client protective and promotional SEO campaigns and search strategy to highlight positive online conversation and suppress negative conversation on popular search engines
- Developed in-house expertise on blogging, new media, podcasting, technology, citizen journalism, and CGM, including training, teaching, and the development of blogging and online marketing strategy
- Managed online advertising campaigns using Yahoo and Google contextual ads
- Fully-monetized network of blogs and affiliate web sites
- Affiliate keyword marketing and contextual advertising
- Search engine optimization (SEO) and online promotion
- Administration of multiple WordPress, Moveable Type, and Drupal blogs on dedicated server
- Blog strategy and planning for high-traffic, high-profile blog relaunch
- Customized Moveable Type installation on CentOS dedicated server
- Transition from TypePad to newest Movable Type 3.34 install
- Monetization of blogs, including BlogAds and Google AdSense placement
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO) of blogs
- Manage Google Apps Premier hosting of Email for Abraham Harrison LLC
- Manage CentOS dedicated server hosting Drupal, WordPress, and Movable Type installations

Sales Representative, Visible Technologies — 1/2007-Present
- Sell and promote TruCast and TruView SEO and online advocacy ASP solutions online and in Washington, DC

Associate, crayon LLC — 3/2007-Present
- Work and expertise partnership collaboration between crayon LLC and Abraham Harrison LLC
- Audited all crayon LLC sites and blogs for SEO, UI, architecture, branding, and marketing strategy

Senior RSS Consultant, Hinchcliffe & Company — 1/2007-Present
- On-site syndication strategist for T. Rowe Price Information Technology (TRPIT)
- Research and development towards deploying a public, consumer-focused RSS product
- Solution included a customized ATOM 1.0 feed supplying daily mutual fund pricing
- Solution included a Google Gadget and a Live.com Microsoft Gadget alternative
- Solution included subscription strategies for Bloglines, Google Personalized Home Page, etc.

Director of Social Media, COMTEG.COM — 12/2006-Present
- Web2.0 strategy analyst for major European telecom company
- Produced case studies on Web2.0, Revver, digg, Google Reader, Google, YouTube, Helio, VOX, Dodgeball, Second Life
- Produced case studies on prediction markets: Inkling Markets, PROTRADE, Blogshares, Washington Stock Exchange (WSX), The simExchange, newsfutures, RealityMarkets, Consensus Point (Foresight Server, Foresight on Demand), NewsFuture (Prediction Trader)
- Produced case studies on online personal and public calendars: Google Calendar, Yahoo! Calendar, AOL Calendar, Apple iCal, Microsoft Live, Upcoming, Eventful,
- Produced case studies on blog and feed search engines: Ask.com, Technorati, Google Blogsearch
- Produced case studies on social networking sites: VOX, YouTube, digg
- Produced detailed studies and corporate recommendations on Web2.0 (web 2.0), RSS, widgetization (widgets, Google Gadgets, desktop gadgets), long tail strategy
- Produced case studies on online address books and online contacts and networks: Plaxo
- Direct engagement and recommendations for web2.0 strategy

Consultant, Travelistic.com, Diversion Media — 8/2006-10/2006
- Web strategy document commissioned by Nicolas Butterworth
- Word-of-Mouth and buzz marketing strategy document and hiring recommendations
- Search engine optimization (SEO) strategy document

Independent Web Strategies Consultant — 8/2006-Present
- On-site training, briefing, and client pitching as online buzz marketing and SEO expert
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO) expert, focusing on both brand promotion and protection in search
- Online Buzz Marketing, Online Word-of-Mouth Marketing, and Online Viral Marketing expert
- Consulting and guiding PR and Marketing firms in their creation of Online Marketing practices
- Web Strategy document commissioned by Nicholas Butterworth and Diversion Media for Travelistic.com launch
- Web Strategy document commissioned by Friendster
- Word of Mouth campaign commissioned by HostNuke for EggDisk file storage service
- Online buzz marketing proposal commissioned by Red Bricks Media for their client use

Senior Account Supervisor, Online Advocacy, Edelman — 5/2006-8/2006
- Client contact for Wal-Mart’s innovative blog outreach campaign, including prospecting and messaging
- Spearheaded Working Families for Wal-Mart blog, newsletter, and activation list
- Developed online word of mouth outreach for Taylor Hicks webcast from Wal-Mart shareholder’s meeting
- Co-produced Exposing the Paid Critics blog for Working Families for Wal-Mart
- Co-produced successful online advocacy proposals to GE, Nissan, Shell, the American Petroleum Institute (API), and Wal-Mart Realty
- Designed and developed opt-in membership Email and messaging campaigns

Technology Strategist, New Media Strategies, Inc. — 9/2003-5/2006
- Developed online word-of-mouth marketing strategy and tactics used on Usenet, message boards, social networks, and blogs
- Developed online advocacy and outreach campaigns for clients’ products, services, and message
- Produced internal and client protective and promotional SEO campaigns and search strategy to highlight positive online conversation and suppress negative conversation on popular search engines
- Developed in-house expertise on blogging, new media, podcasting, technology, citizen journalism, and CGM, including training, teaching, and the development of blogging and online marketing strategy
- Developed, deployed, and launched client and internal corporate blogs, marketing blogs, vertical industry blogs, PR blogs, promotional blogs, public affairs blogs, social networks, and podcasts, including Club TomTom, New Media Sense, Extreme Mortman, and others.
- Managed online advertising campaigns using Yahoo and Google contextual ads
- Client service work included Sci-Fi Channel (Mad Mad House, Tripping the Rift, Battlestar Galactica), Buena Vista (Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy), TomTom, Paramount Pictures, Coca-Cola, McDonalds, Disney, Reebok, EA (UXO, Sim-City Online), RCA (American Idol CD), and NBC (Revelations), etc . . .

Consultant, Blog Production and Strategy, BoldMouth — 8/2006-Present
- Blog strategy and planning for high-traffic, high-profile blog relaunch
- Customized Moveable Type installation on CentOS dedicated server
- Transition from TypePad to newest Movable Type 3.31 install
- Monetization of blog, including BlogAds and Google AdSense placement
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO) of blog

Director of Sales, eResources, LLC — 9/2002-9/2003
- Managed sales force and new business for the ITonDemand and the eResources Content Management System products

Senior Web Developer, National Legal Aid & Defender Association — 2/2002 – 9/2002
- Developed Web applications and content management system (CMS) developer using Zope, Python, and MySQL

Managing Director, beehive North America — 7/2000-2/2002
- President, co-owner, and co-founder of beehive North America, the North American office of Berlin-based beehive elektronische medien GmbH
- Sold and marketed software Zope application development training and services
- Clients included College of Exploration, The Nature Conservancy, and Space Telescope Science, and Pfizer Global Research and Development (PGRD)

Online Community Builder, Caucus Systems, Inc. — 7/1999-6/2000
- Online community, online conference, and online event facilitator and host
- Linux/Unix system administrator (LAMP SA)

Senior Information Engineer, FCBS — 12/1997-7/1999
- On-site consultant for US Department of Treasury Chief Information Office (CIO)
- Core duties included HTML, scripting (Perl, SSI), programming, graphic design, management, development, and deployment of the CIO Intranet and public website

Teacher, Education for the Arts (EFA), KRESA — 8/1996-6/1998
- High school teacher of the first fully accredited virtual online high school creative writing course for Kalamazoo, MI, Public Schools arts magnet program

Software Engineer, Proxicom, Inc. (Proxima in 1996) — 1/1996-8/1996
- Internet web application developer for the seminal web application company

Technical and Customer Support, Picture Network International (PNI) — 7/1993-8/1995
- Help desk for Industry’s second dial-up online stock photo agency
- Start-up funded and supported by SRA and Tribune Media Company

PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS
Guest Lecturer on History Blogging, History in the Digital Age, American University — 1/31/2007

Guest Speaker, “What is RSS? And How can it change my life?,” AOL University, AOL — 2/8/2007

Blogging Instructor, The Writer’s Center — 2/2006-Present

Blogger, Because the Medium is the Message — 1999-Present

Stock Photographer, Pacific Stock — 1990-Present

Stock Photographer, Corbis — 1990-2004

Guest Lecturer on Public Affairs Blogging, SIPA, Columbia University — 10/15/1005

Emergent Technologies Advisor, Communications Advisory Board, Urban Institute.

Participant Member, Moderator and Speaker, Renaissance Weekends, Renaissance Institute

Partner of Counsel, Haft, Harrison & Wolfson, Inc.

Associate, Howard Rheingold Associates

Founder and Organizer, DC Zope Python User Group (ZPUG)

EDUCATION AND TRAINING
The George Washington University, Washington, DC
- BA, American Literature, Minor Creative Writing, 1993

University of Hawaii, Manoa Campus, Honolulu, HI
- Intensive course work, French, 1992

University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK
- Junior year abroad, English and American Studies (EAS), 1990-1991

I responded in-depth to a question from Charles Edward Frith that was asked over at Strumpette, in response to my long comment,

“a huge portion of the population that are social media averse; gadget allergic even. How do you propose to get your message to this group?” I misunderstood his question and replied as though he asked, “a huge portion of the PR, advertising, and marketing population…” as opposed to the “general” population, and so my response is based on that misunderstanding and premise… “You really can’t — the main reason that I only lasted at Edelman for 90-days is because they never used me for my expertise in Linux, RSS, SEO, geek culture, geek cred… they really just wanted someone else who “got blogs” Blogs are also the Web 2.0 platform, too. The gulf between Communication School and the MIT Media Lab is too deep.”

Here is the comment from Charles Edward Frith in full:

“I’m not sure if you’re responding to me Chris. It is OK to address people directly in orums; we call it the conversation. If you are, I am saying that there is a huge portion of the population that are social media averse; gadget allergic even. How do you propose to get your message to this group?

And here is my long, ranting, and misdirected response:

“You really can’t — the main reason that I only lasted at Edelman for 90-days is because they never used me for my expertise in Linux, RSS, SEO, geek culture, geek cred… they really just wanted someone else who “got blogs” Blogs are also the Web 2.0 platform, too. The gulf between Communication School and the MIT Media Lab is too deep.

They didn’t even see what I was, which was a geek first, a marketer second. I don’t know if I can share this here, but here are some of my ideas on the subject… http://www.cabraham.com/ideas — to me, it is really about both the community and also the platform.

One needs to blog — message — at both the people in the blogosphere but also to the semantic web. When I realised that www.edelman.com was anti-SEO-optimized (it didn’t care at all about search engine optimization at all!), and really didn’t care (and they were afraid of upsetting IT and the people who ran the site) I was pretty sure I had made a terrible decision.

New Marketing needs to understand ping servers, online communities, cirtual worlds, RSS, RSS2, ATOM, GData, tags, labels, Google juice, the semantic web, gadgetization, what “slashdotted” is, why del.icio.us and digg and reddit and Newsvine and Stumbleupon are important. They need to grok Revver and Vox and Facebook and they need to know what “WordPress, Movable Type, Drupal, Xoops, Joomla, phpBB, etc” are.

This isn’t just “how to IM Kos” — this is about Internet Forensics and fisking and unintended consequences and blowback and counter-messaging.

There is a lot more going on than just “activating email lists” and “creating a blog.”

And we have not even talked about Prediction Markets, we have not talked about message boards, we have not talked about YouTube (it is a community, not a video site, at its heart), or Flickr (same thing, it is a community and it is not Photobucket).

New Media Marketing and New PR needs to know what Web 2.0 is, not as a buzz word or as hocus pocus. It is a platform, it is an emergence, it is a honey pot. It is “build it and they will come,” but only if it is cool and and compelling, and always in beta, and never loses focus of the users’ needs.

Actually, Yahoo and AOL are getting their game on again. Google gets it in its source code. Why are PR and marketing firms so risk averse? Why, to quote you, Mr, Charles Edward Frith, why is there a “huge portion of the population that are social media averse; gadget allergic even?”

And when I say that, I am talking about Edelman, I am talking about NMS, I am talking about Ogilvy. It is our responsibility as media professionals to be so expert in the technology, the protocol, the culture, and the passion (called passion chamber, as another term for the blogosphere’s echo chamber — and I own www.passionachamber.com, actually) so that this population doesn’t have to.

A population that universally adopts iPods, Plasma HDTVs, and DirecTV with TiVO is not gadget allergic.

What Old PR and Old Media might be really great at is taking an ubergeek like me and working with me to translate all of this cool stuff to the 7th grade reading ease so that new media and web 2.0 can better connect. This will be more and more important.

Unfortunately, when it comes to influencing the influencer, that person is not the “population” — that is a person who thinks that “salesmen” and “PR executives” and “advertising folks” are a bunch of wankers who don’t get it, wouldn’t know cool if it hit ‘em in the face, who are too focused on what people think about them to ever allow people to get to know them, to be authentic, and to be open.

The bad PR that PR has felt for years: snake oil salesmen, hustlers, pretty boys, spin-doctors, and inauthentic, opportunistic liars is exacerbated in the rarefied web where all of these things are not tolerated at all — and to be honest, nobody has to.

Lots of PR people I know tell me that they have to be risk-averse and they have to pull punches because the PR world is incestuous and to be honest, burning bridges is a death blow to one’s career. I am told the same thing by folks in the Valley who are afraid of insulting the silicon Gods.

Coming from a place of fear is just plain unacceptable. At the end of the day, I am a Linux SA who loves to hack PHP and MySQL and so really, I am neither a Valley wag nor am I am PR lifer. Most of my consulting deals with my niche of genius and I don’t see myself as ever getting too tarred or feathered — never to the point where people will cease hiring my counsel… even if it is on the down low after my name is mud.

So, I am not really tolerant when it comes to this PR sycophantism. The Internet and the bloggers and the people who matter now don’t play that. I know reporters and they do surely covet and protect and are jealous of their career arcs. And this fear for career and for immortality is easy to coerce and control.

Web 2.0 is not about control. The X factor in new marketing is that people really have no career arc, people online really cannot be kept in the kind of sycophantic blackmail that is common on Capitol Hill, on Madison Avenue, on K Street, and also in Silicon Valley.

When Edelman has to block Strumpette from 2,000 laptops and desktops held in their worldwide network, then maybe Edelman and the like aren’t as new media and new public relations as they would like to preach.

You can’t have it both ways. The only two things that the Internet doesn’t suffer: fear and hypocrisy. And from what I have been seeing, there seems to be a lot of both of them, both in Old PR and Marketing as well as in “new marketing” and “new media PR.”

Anyway, I am ranting. I have a call soon so I am going to stop now and click on “Submit Comment.” Thanks in advance for indulging me. I am going to rewrite this a little and post it on my blog… cheers for making me thing and making write! I have been way too busy to take the time to really download.”

I hope that the following article is a good first step towards deciding if blogging is the best investment of your time, energy, resources, and message.

I have been participating in online virtual communities since I bought my first 300 baud modem back in 1983 and logged into my first Honolulu BBS. In the last 22-years, I have been a member of many different virtual communities, including discussion forums, USENET newsgroups, Wikis, and of course blogs. There are some important things to consider before you decide to use blogging — or any sort of online communication — as a way to convey your company’s brand and message.

Effective PR Blogging

How to develop an effective public relations (PR) blog strategy for your company or organization.

For-profit companies and the modern incarnation of the traditional University have a lot in common. Universities have been using viral, buzz, and word-of-mouth marketing for years: their students, their professors, and especially their alumni networks. It is little wonder why MIT and Yale offer future Presidents lifetime free email addresses in the form of alum.mit.edu, and aya.yale.edu — because when smart people share valuable information, people want to know where that person went and where that person works.

It is very likely that your business can benefit in a similar fashion by setting the best and brightest in your company free to create goodwill for your firm and spread your name in the community. If properly utilized, these ambassadors can have a significant impact on the image and standing of your company, so they should be carefully chosen, loyal, invested team players. At present, the best tool for this job is the weblog, better known as “blogs”. In the article below, I will try to give an overview of the use and impact of blogs, and to provide a history and contextualization of blogs, so you can better decide if and how you would like to implement this powerful tool.

Years ago, I served as Managing Director of beehive North America, a software company that developed web applications using a Python-based programming platform called Zope. In order to see where interest lay, I started the Zope Python User Group (ZPUG) and a personal blog that featured my day-to-day while also being the only place where photos, information, and meeting minutes for the User Group could be found. I quickly realized that it is possible to shamelessly promote yourself, your wares, your company, and your services if you are perceived as giving way more than you get.

In my case, I used my personal blog to cover monthly ZPUG meetings, how my travels to Germany to visit my parent company went, and how cool it was to train Zope to the gang at Pfizer, Johns Hopkins, and the Nature Conservancy. I talked about working on new e-Books and developing new components for our Enterprise-level content management suite of applications that we were developing for major Berlin banks.

Since it wasn’t a corporate blog proper and served as my personal home page, I could easily discuss everything that was happening to me, including recipes, pet stories, travel experiences, and lots and lots of work. Since I spent over half my waking hours working, I spent a lot of time blogging about beehive NA, its parent company beehive GmbH, ZPUG, and Zope and Python in general. And since the software is Open Source and constantly evolving and maturing, my blog became a valuable resource to find more Zope answers, Zope help, Zope information, Zope training, and Zope developers. And that trainer and that developer would usually be beehive NA or beehive GmbH.

Like I said before, Universities have been doing this kind of viral and buzz marketing for centuries. And since Universities openly and readily share their scholarship, no matter how shameless the pomp of their titles, they and their hallowed Academies most certainly offer back much more than they are perceived as taking. And yet they are not paupers. Universities control endowments in the billions of dollars and command princely sums for the privilege of study. This is a shrewd business in which prestige, altruism, collaboration, brain trust, and purity of thought result in a self-promotional carte blanche that only finds its equal in organized religion. There is nothing even close in the commercial world.

Most of the early tech companies and early adopters of the Internet circa 1992 were former academics. The first thing these academics did when they moved from the Ivory Tower to a suite of offices was to get back into the USENET newsgroups they frequented during their research days. In truth the only notable difference in their discourse was in the signature file at the end of every posting. Instead of an .EDU address, the posters transitioned their emails to .COM. These were the pre-SPAM days when it was okay to have your plain text email address in a public posting. Everybody had their real email in their revealing signature at the bottom of every posting. This signature said a lot about you. It lent legitimacy to your words and allowed you to be the expert. If your media.mit.edu email address worked, then you were in fact who you said you were.

There isn’t a better form of word of mouth marketing than having the name of your company associated with brilliance. Universities have known this for years and it has become institutionalized in the axiom, publish or perish. Whether a professional journal, a conference, academic paper, the essay, or in postings on USENET, the reputation of an academic and the academy can hinge on the prestige associated with good PR. And in the academic environment, content is king.

USENET used to be exclusive and it wasn’t until well into the 90s when gateways opened up to AOL and other ISPs to USENET, followed closely by spammer, spiders, and bots. Forced into exile by bozos, baiters, flamers, and newbies, USENET became Balkanized. A brain drain into more exclusive communities ensued. One of the earliest homes for the alpha male techie was Slashdot, which launched in 1997 and is a prototype for the modern blog with Dave Winer’s Scripting News being one of the earliest. Both of these sites were highly technical with strong academic influences.

Until 1999, one might find some important vestige of USENET in a personal web site or in a Frequently Asked Question (FAQ) but these were publications and not open for debate and collaboration in the same culture of open sharing found in the Newsgroups. In the late 90s, web logging (blogging) became a viable option for savvy users and early adopters. Blogs allowed easy daily postings and associated threaded discussions and XML-based Really Simple Syndication (RSS).

Blogging articles – whether personal, technical, or professional – with the ability to accept reader comments and be able to track visitors has become a major force in the media in the last few years, arguably influencing the 2004 U.S. Presidential election. Not only were people interesting in learning what other people were thinking real time, but people were eager to talk back and get involved in dynamic debates over issues as they happened.

RSS has become very simple and widely adopted in recent years. The reading of online content via RSS client software allows online readers to dispense with their Favorites and Bookmarks and read online news, journalism, journaling, papers, search engines, and magazines in the same way we now read email.

Most consumers ignore corporate sites as sales pitch and propaganda. Not so if you allow your employees to speak for you. Talk not only about the cool new project and hot new services, but everything else. If you hire smart, if you trust your employees, if you walk the talk, then there is nothing to worry about. And people really enjoy listening to employees discuss their day-to-day. Consumers want to know your company’s eye color and they only way they’ll find out is by getting to your you through your employees.

It is similar to visiting campus before applying to college. You want to stop a couple students (or talk to a couple alumni) and ask them about their experience. People love gossip and people adore getting the inside scoop because everybody likes dirty laundry and everybody loves being let in on a secret. What this comes down to is that people demand to be entertained and nothing gives back more than feeling like an insider.

If I were to recommend blog-building to a .COM enterprise, it would have to be at this level: invite your brightest to blog just outside the umbrella of the company with your blessing. There are some important ground rules: the employee needs to feel comfortable and not micromanaged otherwise the blog will not be perceived as honest. People can tell when their being duped; additionally, it is essential that there is trust there on both sides; finally, it is important to find the employee who really wants to do this, otherwise the blog will fall to disrepair.

It takes such a leap of faith to convince the corporate lawyers to loosen their grip on blogging employees. And, as the number of bloggers who get canned by their employer for blogging, increases, people are going to become more covert about it. They go underground. They are blogging already anyway. Why not allow them to blog fully, blog freely, and share with the rest of the world the proud fact they spend half of all their waking hours working for you, your company, and fulfilling your vision?

©2004 Christopher James Abraham