Blogspotting - BusinessWeek

Packing up the BW office

Stephen Baker — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 14:53:28 -0500

In a cluttered office, I'm discovering, almost nothing is worth keeping. But as I pack my things, I come across two books that give me second thought:

Are You Missing the Real Estate Boom--Why home values and other real estate investments will climb through the end of the decade, and how to profit from them. By David Lereah (sounds like something I should be on top of...)

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Microsoft Windows Vista. (Who knows, in two or three years, I might "upgrade" to Vista...)

Then my colleague Burt Helm, the marketing and advertising editor, comes by with an envelope. It's a letter from the Direct Marketing Educational Foundation. You'd think these direct marketers would know Burt down to his weekend brunching habits. So it's a surprise to see that they got his title wrong. They call him Bert [sic] Helm, Global President, Baby Kids & Wound Care Franchise. (I wonder if Bloomberg is quietly shifting his beat...)

Still working on saving the archives to this blog. It's a bit of a problem here, because most of the people with control over the innards of this system have been let go. And even if they could help me, Bloomberg no doubt will own the content as of Dec. 1. Maybe I'll just jury-rig something.

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone who celebrates it, and a Happy Thursday to the rest of the world. I'll be seeing you at TheNumerati.net.

Giving Thanks

Heather Green — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 18:26:20 -0500

I'm one of those people. I knew from the very first story that I wrote 25 years ago for the Viking, Loudoun Valley High School's own monopoly of a newspaper, that journalism was for me. I liked trotting around the halls interviewing the lead cheerleader about tryouts (the most important event at school), chatting up the music teacher about the annual musical (of course we only had one) and taking pictures of the boys' soccer team (who wouldn't like that). I quickly figured out the three or four different paths you could take to get into journalism (work for a wire service; get an internship at Time or Newsweek; cover courts and cops for the local edition of a metropolitan paper), and the path that you would travel after that (be a writer, start editing, become a senior feature writer or editor, then retire). It all seems so quaint now.

I went the wire route, starting my career (ironically) at Bloomberg, a young startup and one of the few media joints hiring in the early 1990s. (And a place where the word "ironically" was banned from stories.) The thing about starting with a young company is you get a lot of opportunity. And my opportunity was to build from scratch their coverage of the Internet, starting with Netscape's IPO. It was phenomenal to meet those people (Jerry Yang, Jeff Bezos, Marc Andreessen) when meeting them meant hanging out on couches at tiny conferences and talking about what all this Web stuff might turn into. It was 1994 and no one had a clue.

When I was hired by Bloomberg, the fellow hiring me asked me where I wanted to be in 5 years. He used to work at Businessweek (I know because it was one of the first things he told me when we sat down ) and so to impress him back, I said "Businessweek." I soon figured out that that was actually a good idea and 3 years later I landed there, covering the Internet and continuing my love affair with emerging tech.

The environment at BW was incredible. Collegial, analytical, devoted to journalism. And that's what I will miss. I could bore you all with stories of the past 12 years. But I'd rather discuss things that I am most thankful for.

First, just the opportunity to meet incredibly capable, thoughtful people and exchange ideas. Every time I got on the phone or sat in a conference room with someone from a startup or IBM or Amazon or what have you, I just felt privileged to be able to learn about something new. I was just as lucky to work with the fantastic group of folks here at BW. It's hard to believe even now the level of conversation and analysis that I was exposed to here. I want to thank everyone who met with me or worked with me over the years for their patience, their insight, and their time.

Second, I'm thankful for the skills I learned. I am so lucky to have been able to learn to blog and podcast and use Twitter and be on Facebook for my job. I was literally paid to learn the skills that journalists need these days to thrive and given the foundation to consider new careers. And all of you helped me along, encouraging me and Steve to try new things, providing us with insight about different technologies and approaches to journalism. You taught us what we needed to know, whether it was evolving our thoughts about what journalism is or learning what new technology we should use.

Third, I'm thankful that I was able to explore an area that I am passionate about: clean tech and environmentalism. Now, with leaving Businessweek, I will have the opportunity to explore carving out a new career in that arena.

Fourth, I'm thankful that I was able to be a journalist. I loved writing, I loved the ethics, I loved grousing about how editors were asking for stupid new facts. I've been lucky to work at the kind of organization that really put a Chinese wall between journalists and advertising, that respected the work reporters did, and that hired the kind of people who did everything they could to make a story better.

I know that there is a lot more that I am forgetting right now. But, I let me just repeat, thank you all, within Businessweek and outside of it. And thank you Steve, for being the generous, warm, intelligent, and curious person that you are.

How to save this blog (or at least the posts)

Stephen Baker — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 07:53:13 -0500

Heather and I both got the word on Thursday that we won't be part of BusinessWeek once Bloomberg takes over, on Dec. 1. (We're both pleased with this outcome, though it's no picnic watching the staff get decimated, with good friends and colleagues heading off in every direction.) In the coming week, I think I'll write a nice long eulogy for this blog.

But in the meantime, a question: Does anyone know how to preserve and store our four and a half years of blog posts and comments? Our colleague Arik Hesseldahl said something about turning each month into a pdf. I'll look into that (as soon as I close my last story tomorrow). But you have a specific how-to, I'm all ears. As I wrote in September on my Numerati blog, I'm not sure how committed Bloomberg will be to social media. There's no telling when someone might pull the plug on a server housing the archives of a discontinued blog.

Omidyar to the Rescue of Professional News?

Heather Green — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 15:08:06 -0500

This is an incredible development for me, given what's happening at BusinessWeek. And I do mean hard to believe. But in an encouraging and intriguing way.

As the traditional media world is being hacked to tiny pieces by the Internet, Pierre Omidyar, that guy who harnessed the Web so powerfully, says he's founding a for-profit news service in Hawaii that will be staffed with, gulp, professional reporters.

Omidyar's pr person Sarah Steven says that Omidyar's motivation is simple: He's seen the decline of the industry and believes that a strong democracy needs a strong media to help keep citizens informed and involved.

The facts: Omidyar will be directly involved, not just an investor. The service is expected to launch late in the first quarter of 2010 or in the beginning of the second. It will be online only. The venture is based in Hawaii because that's where Omidyar has lived for nearly 3 years. Steven says there aren't any plans to expand right now.

The fascination: For one thing, this is someone who gets the Web and who has done a lot with citizen journalism. He backed Backfence and Bayosphere, two high profile early pioneers in citizen journalism that both failed. Clearly he hasn't given up on that, given how he talks about it in his blog post. But he also believes that you can't just leave the future of media up to the grassroots forces or the blog ventures that are shaping news online right now. Clearly he feels like journalism needs more help.

Just as important, he's convinced there's a business model for news. Goodness knows, for that reason alone, his venture is one to watch.

A new editor at BusinessWeek

Stephen Baker — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 12:57:18 -0500

Bloomberg annouced today that we'll have a new editor-in-chief at BusinessWeek. His name is Josh Tyrangiel. He's 37 years old and has little background in business. Those are both pluses, as far as I'm concerned. As a young editor, he's not likely to be steeped in the very legacies that weigh our industry down. And business coverage, to be interesting and vibrant, should be tied to broader trends in society. Stand-alone business pieces tend not only to be boring, but also blinkered.

Here's a vision I wrote last week for BusinessWeek. From my point of view, the key question for Josh and his bosses (Norman Pearlstine and Matthew Winkler) is whether they're interested in gaining a readership "outside of" business. Based on what I've been hearing, I doubt it.

I would like the magazine to become not only required reading, but also a source of pleasure, for the most curious and intelligent people on earth, inside and outside of business.

I'm Back

Heather Green — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 11:18:01 -0500

I'm back at BW and what timing! I'm landing right in the midst of BW's ongoing drama and all of us wondering where we'll be when the deal closes Dec. 1. So, being back on the blog is a bright spot and I really look forward to chatting it up with y'all again.

I took 6 months off for maternity leave. I decided that during that time, I'd stay away from work and focus on my daughter Lilly. And what that meant for me was staying away from blogging and Twitter. I was at the computer about to do some Twittering a few weeks after my daughter was born, but I couldn't type anything in. It didn't feel right to me, though I've done personal tweets before. I realized that my digital persona feels inextricably wrapped up in Businessweek. That there was a real distinction between what was appropriate and what wasn't. Or actually, what people who signed up to follow me would expect. And it felt like it should mostly be things from an official BW person, not a majority of things from Lilly's mom.

I know folks like Fred Wilson have split up where they write about their personal lives and where they write about their professional ones. And I guess I did that as well in a defacto way. Since I'd made the conscious decision not to think about work while I was on maternity leave, the follow on decision was to let my tweets and blog posts go silent. Breaking that silence now feels liberating in a way I hadn't expected. I'm happy to be back on the blog, happy to start thinking about tech in a reporterly way again.

Does new Google Dashboard enhance privacy?

Stephen Baker — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 11:13:32 -0500

With a new Google dashboard, unveiled yesterday in Spain, we'll be able to monitor the information Google has about us in its various applications, from gmail to YouTube. This is the kind of disclosure privacy advocates have been calling for. I think it will enhance Google's reputation--and entice us to share more data with them (which may be the ultimate goal).

I also think this new dashboard will help Google get a better look at each one of us. Here's why. Last summer, I was having a not-for-attribution chat with a senior Google official. I asked him what Google knew about me. He told me that within Google's data centers, there were gazillions of data bits about all of the company's users, their searches, click, emails, YouTube uploads, etc. But he said it would be loads of work to bring all of this data together and build individual profiles. What's more, it would require lots of computing, and there wasn't a clear business model for it.

UPDATE: JUST GOT THIS CLARIFICATION FROM GOOGLE:

Its not an individual profile of the different products and doesn't correlate the data. Instead, the Dashboard was designed to scan the different products and services you use for a summary of the user data they each store individually. The Dashboard does not access raw data from the services, does not correlate any cross services data and it does not collect or store any additional user data. And when refreshing or closing your Dashboard page, all data is removed from the Dashboard.

But now, there appears to be a model. To address privacy concerns, Google appears to be bringing together much of that data. And once they have it, they're much closer to a coherent look at each one of us. Perhaps there's still not a business model for such personalized data. It'll be a while before advertisers can come up with 500 million customized pitches. But who knows what correlations Google will find between our various activities. (NOTE: Google says none.) And if this dashboard generates trust, the pickings should grow even richer.
(cross-posted on TheNumerati.net)

Buying Twitter followers?

Stephen Baker — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 15:52:01 -0500

I've been carrying out a small experiment in one of the areas of greatest potential abuse of social media: Twitter marketing. If you Google "Twitter buy followers," you'll see lots of choices. One outfit called Quick Online Tips offers 100,000 followers for a mere $3,479.

I didn't want to spend money, so I went to a far tamer site, FastFollowers.com. It functions as a sort of Lonely Hearts Club for Twitterers. Every time you follow a person, you get a point. You give the points back when people follow you. So, if you have lots of patience (I don't), you follow thousands of people, and eventually thousands follow you. (You can take a shortcut by simply buying credits, 5,000 of them for $99.50.)

I set up a new Twitter account which now has 208 followers. (I'll keep it secluded, for now, in my little laboratory. I want it to remain a purely FastFollower beast.)

Those 208 people "follow" me. They appear to pay no attention to my Tweets. They don't respond when I send them @ messages. They're too busy branding themselves to their followers, including me, to listen. Their only communication is spam in my direct-mailbox. Example:

martinbastin
Wishing you health and happiness....I look forward to Tweeting with you....for FREE marketing information check out my blog at http://bit.ly/4OyKe

It would be easy to write off all the people on FastFollower as spammers. But it doesn't appear to be the case. Some are actually sharing observations and links. But they want a crowd.

Why is this? Could it be that having 10,000 Twitter followers gives people the social media version of a face lift? Does it make them more employable? Open doors? All I know is that people are willing to pay for it, and they're not all spammers.

Researching Enterprise 2.0 consulting

Stephen Baker — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 11:45:05 -0500

For the next couple of weeks, I'm going to be writing about consulting, of the Enterprise 2.0 variety. For this I need all the help I can get: suggestions, tips, insights, case studies.

Here's the idea: Enterprise 2.0 is a rage. C-suite execs are hearing non-stop that their competitiveness, agility, innovation, and ability to attract top brainpower hinge on their effective adoption of new social tools and practices. We all know the words. (We've written many of them ourselves.) Transparency. Break down the silos. Conversations. Market research on Twitter. Wikified research.

This boom is attracting hordes of consultants and software entrepreneurs. Many, no doubt, offer valuable advice. But it's a new domain, very short on best practices and metrics. Who's an expert? Opportunities abound for poseurs.

So, what's going on? How can you spot a legit player? Is there any common advice that just doesn't make sense for certain types of companies? Are there bogus metrics? (Twitter followers, perhaps?) Smart ones?

One more question: In Enterprise 2.0, where the community delivers intelligence, answers questions, and solves problems, shouldn't much of this type of consulting be... free? Isn't it weirdly old-school to pay thousands of dollars a day for this type of advice?

I could use all the suggestions you have. I'll be carrying out the research on this blog, and publishing some of what I learn along the way. Thanks.

SocialText CEO: When does Tweeting trump Friending?

Stephen Baker — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 16:09:18 -0500

SocialText CEO Eugene Lee argues that Twitter might be a better model than Facebook for next-gen communications within companies, so-called Enterprise 2.0. Facebook's trouble? Reciprocal friending. The problem, he says, is that employees on corporate social networks start collecting friendships of execs. "Because the Rolodex is public, it becomes a matter of VP trading cards."

A preferable model for corporate relationships, he says, is Twitter, where people lend their attention, not necessarily their friendship. In SocialText's Twitter-like corporate offering, Signals, more people are likely to "follow" the CEO--assuming he or she has anything interesting to Tweet.

Lee, who stopped by our offices this afternoon, also had thoughts about enterprise search. Here's the kind of question people ask each other in companies. "You know that slide of the chart with the curve that makes that double-dip?" And answers, Lee says, are almost impossible to find on search engines.

Studies indicate, he says, that knowledge industry workers spend the equivalent of one day per week searching for people or information. Often, the key is to find "the person who knows the person who knows the answer."

Of course Lee's betting that companies will harness social tools to find that information and make workers more productive. The only problem, from my perspective: Sometimes questions are dumb, and it's less embarrassing for employees to pound away on Google and desktop search...

The BusinessWeek buyout: Can Bloomberg extend beyond its core?

Stephen Baker — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 15:13:20 -0500

Several hundred BusinessWeek employees filed into an auditorium at the McGraw Hill headquarters yesterday morning to learn about their future. On the stage were top editors and execs from Bloomberg LP, which had just scooped up our 80 weekly (and its Web site) at an undisclosed (but no doubt fire-sale) price.

Here's what we heard: Bloomberg, which sells its "box" for $20,000 a year, is swimming in money, unfettered by the grim advertising economy, immensely ambitious, and dedicated to becoming the leading power in financial and business news. Getting bought by such an outfit bodes well for many at BusinessWeek. While restructuring and layoffs are inevitable at a magazine losing $1 million a week, Bloomberg ranks as the closest thing in journalism these days to a safe home.

Still, I'm trying to think ahead 10 years and wondering about the future of Bloomberg's model. They have a proprietary technology platform in a world moving toward open standards. Their box has an interface that requires training courses--this in a global market where simple, intuitive systems rise to the top. These limitations haven't mattered to date, because Bloomberg holds a trump card: speedy and reliable data. Traders have plenty of incentive to pay for the boxes and figure out how to use them, because real-time data is a must. If their competitors get the news first, they lose. It's this dynamic which fuels the 300,000 (and counting) subscriptions for Bloomberg boxes.

How much can this market grow? To listen to Bloomberg execs, they make money from the boxes and invest that money in more news-gathering power, which makes the boxes even more attractive. It's a virtuous cycle which presumably leads to continuous growth. With BusinessWeek, Bloomberg hopes to extend its brand into the wider business audience, including c-suite executives, and open up further markets for their boxes.

I don't see it. In my experience, every continuous growth projection encounters some force that disrupts it.

Seems to me that for Bloomberg to reach wider business dominance, it must leverage the power of its box outside the box--finding a way to sell premium data services for a fraction of $20,000 a year on the Web. This will require far more than the virtuous cycle. The company, which a generation ago innovated with the box, will have to innovate again, developing a new business model. Of course, it doesn't hurt to have $6 billion in box revenue and and an immense news organization backing it up. But still, it will require establishing new and cheaper services that provide a dose of magic from the box, but without cannibalizing it.

The BusinessWeek acquisition may provide some of the missing pieces. Yet despite the ambitions expressed at yesterday's meeting, I'd bet that the magazine will end up serving largely as a promotional tool for the company. The real business will be online. That's where Bloomberg 2.0 will take shape.

(I postponed a flight to Colorado yesterday so that I could attend the meeting, and then I struggled to get a standby flight out here. By the way, I didn't hear one word at yesterday's meeting about how Bloomberg plans to use social media. If and when I get to meet the buyers, I'll be asking them that.)
(cross-posted on TheNumerati.net)

Spam? People still happy to hand out e-mail addresses

Stephen Baker — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 12:37:42 -0500

A new Harris Interactive survey shows that even in this spammy world we inhabit, the overwhelming majority of people still open their e-mail boxes for the right offers. According to Harris, 96% of adults have provided their email address to receive special offers or more information.(I agreed to receive this news by e-mail, which I guess helps to prove the point.) Additionally, 73% of respondents say they are more willing to make a purchase from a brand they have signed-up with.

The sponsor of this study, a lead-generation company called Pontiflex, is eager to demonstrate that people who agree to receive mailings--those who "opt in"--make for valuable customers. Its technology enables marketers to gather opt-in information, including e-mail addresses (amended).

I wonder about the sophistication of the e-mailing public. I keep a Hotmail account for virtually all of my commercial dealings. Those relationships are quarantined from the rest of my online life, and I'd imagine that Hotmail address is worth next to nothing as a lead. Do you maintain similar accounts? What does that say about lead generation? Are those of us with multiple accounts still a minority? (cross-posted on TheNumerati.net)

The FTC's new rules tilt against bloggers

Stephen Baker — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 15:56:05 -0500

Yes, the Federal Trade Commission is cracking down on undisclosed cash or freebies given to bloggers. Funny, we have rules covering such behavior at BW. (We're not allowed to accept the stuff.) But it's the magazine, and not the government, calling the shots. (And in plenty of mags, as Spires notes ex ScratchPad, freebies are part of the game. Wouldn't it be wild, I'm thinking, if mainstream bloggers had to disclose freebies in their blogs, but not in the pages of their magazines and papers?)

I'm all for disclosure, but why should government busy itself with it? Seems to me that lots of bloggers already go to great lengths to make disclosures. In time, won't the public start doubting those who don't--and won't their reputations fall? Am I naive to think that peer pressure would work?

Of course, The FTC guidelines will only affect a fraction of bloggers--the ones who actually have relations with companies and get paid. They're the ones who most resemble mainstream media. For the vast majority of bloggers, the key currency in this economy is not money, but links. People sell influence by linking, and often getting paid in kind. It's in link love, far more than free goodies, that mutual backscratching is endemic.

Social media snake oil?

Stephen Baker — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 11:14:53 -0500

Every company needs a social media strategy. I've written this, at length, myself. For many execs, this is foreign and frightening turf. So many turn to consultants. Now, as Adam Kmiec argues, the market is filling up with lots of wannabes singing from the same hymnals (Cluetrain Manifesto, Groundswell, etc.) and prescribing the same measures: Open up, blog, get on Twitter, follow customers' Twitter feeds, etc.

Adam points to David Armano and Peter Kim, who are concerned about the same issue. Armano writes:

Bottom line, there's unfortunately a short term business model for hucksters out to make a buck at your expense. That's because the field is still young and there isn't much that's been established—it's a bit of a wild west scenerio. Which ironically is a period in time when the snake oil salesmen thrived.

The trouble is this: We're not talking about hard sciences, or even the data analysis of the Numerati. This is social, which is extremely difficult to measure and lends itself to BS. You could have a so-called snake oil salesman who turns out to be smart, figures out the needs of the clients and offers good, albeit familiar, advice.

Adam asks if a social media "sheriff" is needed. Fact is, the customers are vulnerable in part because they haven't mastered these very tools, from blog search to LinkedIn, to carry out due diligence on consultants. It's just a matter of time before someone sets up a consultancy to vet the consultants. Maybe that's the shining opportunity in the field.

Do you see snake oil spreading in this field? (Cross-posted on TheNumerati.net)

Facebook users can afford to pay

Douglas MacMillan — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 09:39:36 -0500

Facebook is the new king of social networking. But the site is stuck with an old business model that prevents it from cashing in on the increasing affluence of its users and the monopoly it has over their attention. Simply put, Facebook should charge.

A recent study by Nielsen Claritas indicates that the top third of lifestyle segments measured by the researcher relative to income were 25% more likely to use Facebook than the bottom third. Meanwhile, less-wealthy segments were 37% more likely to use MySpace.

MySpace popularized the concept of online social networking, and had relative success handing out free accounts and plastering them with ads. But this model does not appear to be sustainable; the unit of News Corp. which contains MySpace lost $363 million in the year ending June 30, and a rotating executive team is evidence that the business is attempting a turnaround. The youth and lack of spending power amongst its users is at least partly to blame for MySpace's decline -- so too is the downturn in online ad spending.

An international love affair with Facebook is also a culprit. Not only has the site -- started in a Harvard dorm room in 2004 -- won over many younger users of MySpace, it's introduced social networking to people in their 20s, 30s, 40s, and older. As the Nielsen Claritas study hints, these users have jobs and bank accounts, and might be willing to shell out a few bucks a month for what is becoming an increasingly valuable communication tool in their lives.