Special Google Buzz rant edition
Google Buzz came to my Gmail account yesterday. I am beyond angry with Google right now, as well as with the other developers of social networks who seem obsessed with recreating their own smug worlds of urban white male 20somethings geotagging their coffee bars. Vaguely coherent reasons for hatred: 1. Appalling usability – options and their effects are completely unclear; the actual interface is not intuitive; and when I logged on this morning, I found that Buzz updates arrive in my Gmail inbox as well as the Buzz one. That’s not going to fly. 2. An apparent inability to consider...
Read MoreAre you ready to deal with enragement as well as engagement?
A quick follow-on from Friday’s post on climate science and the need to engage the public. Science’s vision of ‘the public’ is typically a bunch of respectful yet unfortunately undereducated folk. In reality, there are many publics, including the respectful and the occasionally hostile. Yesterday’s Sunday Times carried an interview with Professor Phil Jones, the head of UEA’s climate science unit, and as such at the centre of the furore over leaked emails from the unit that appear to suggest scientists suppressing Freedom of Information...
Read MoreShow and tell: finding lovely communities
After Christmas, I got a bit weighed down by the Twitter-created business blogosphere – often wonderful but increasingly like a giant webring where you know you will eventually come back to Seth Godin. This web-fatigue is part of the cycle, I think, because I see it in other online settings. My overwhelm got to the point where I couldn’t summon up the will to comment. I don’t like that. So I stopped reading-for-work, and just played around for a bit; and in so doing I found blogs, message boards and websites which are still entirely packed with comments. It’s...
Read MoreWisdom of Mobs: the feedback loop
It’s that eerily calm pause between Christmas and New Year frenzy. There’s a number of half-formed posts in my head, but we’ll go with a swirling scarcely-formed one about crowds, audiences and mobs. Desirable audiences and undesirable ones. Thought one: the way that the internet has caused unknown mass audiences to become active participants. I’m thinking of the people who complained to the Press Complaints Commission about Jan Moir’s piece on Stephen Gately; and on a lighter note, the people persuaded to download Rage Against the Machine in preference to...
Read MoreManifesto
Some of us find it quite simple to put our real organisations and authentic selves online.
Others - well, let's just say that some of us can't bear to look at our own websites.
My mission is to help you transform your online presence so that other people understand and appreciate what you really have to offer. So that you can achieve what you want - whether that's better engagement, more readers, or more sales.