Monthly Archives: November 2008
Need to Shoot Video on the Run? Carry a Flip.
About a month ago, I finally had the opportunity to pick up a Flip camera for a client. Yes, jussssst a bit behind. After numerous posts from Lee Aase on the tool, it was time to give it a whirl. I dig it.
Advantages?
It’s small, compact, shoots decent quality, includes a zoom feature and is incredibly user- friendly. It can also be purchased for around $150 – a pretty great deal. To top it off, the Flip is an all-in-one tool that you can pull out of the box, shoot video and have a spot uploaded to YouTube in five minutes without having to crack open the instructions.
Disadvantages?
With the good of course comes some bad. The zoom is pretty limited and the Flip struggles to record decent sound unless you or your subject are close to the mic. The Flip is also not made for the shaky hand, but luckily there are small, cheap flexible tripods that work great to keep things steady.
Utility
Granted, the Flip is just a tool and we all know tools and technologies change overnight, but how might a PR person put the Flip to use? The ideas are really endless.
Regardless of your client base or industry focus, it’s an affordable tool that any PR pro can utilize to capture footage at events or grab quick interviews (it also has a nice little freeze frame feature to capture photos from your footage). A bit pricier of an approach, but I could also foresee a large company distributing Flips to members of a target audience as part of a video submission contest (perfect for an outdoors or adventure type contest).
Given the rise in attention and popular demand around video, carrying a Flip could also double as an excellent crisis communications tool to deliver a key message from the right personnel in a crunch where alternative channels are limited.
Have you had a chance to try the Flip? How else might you put this tool to use?
-Scott
People You Should Know – John McCrea
Last week, I posted about LinkedIn’s launch of a series of new applications for their site. Within my post, I referenced Plaxo and connected with John McCrea who currently works as Plaxo’s VP of Marketing. Having previously discounted Plaxo as a worthwhile site for my professional networking needs, I asked John to shed some light on the site’s current business model and tell us about his own work in the digital space.
My perception of the site has admittedly changed and I look forward to diving in further to explore networking opportunities.
Sorry for the length on this one, but there is some great insight here. Be sure to connect with John on his blog or on Plaxo, which also provides links to his other social media sites. Thanks for taking the time to fill us in John.
-Scott
How has Plaxo evolved since its start and what do you see as the primary focus for the direction of the site?
John McCrea
JM: Though there have been many changes along the way, it is interesting to note that our central mission has never changed. Plaxo has always wanted to be a vital service for helping people stay connected with the people they know and care about. Originally, that meant a focus on address book, but not some standalone address book. Rather an address book in the cloud that syncs with the address books you already use inside tools like Microsoft Outlook or the address book on your Mac. We were doing “data portability” long before that term became popular.
When social networking was young, and largely meant people connecting to strangers as “friends,” we ignored it. But the more social networking became about real identity and real relationships, the more we saw it as part of our mission. Keeping you connected with the people you know and care about, across all the tools and services you use becomes more complex and more important in a world of social networking and social apps.
So, last year we jumped into the space in a big way. We introduced our own social network, designed to “bring your address book to life,” with three major differentiators. First, we restored meaning to the word “friend” by making it one of three choices: family, friend, and business connection. Second, we pioneered a new kind of personalized news feed, one which brings in content from blogs, Flickr, Yelp, and dozens of other sites, based on what the people you’re connected to want to share with you. And third, we took a strong stance in opposition to the “walled garden” model and have worked really hard to champion user rights of data ownership, data portability, and interoperability.
How is Plaxo working to differentiate itself from sites such as LinkedIn?
JM: First off, I should say that we don’t see ourselves as competing with LinkedIn. We are much more interested in bringing about a day where there is really great interoperability between Plaxo and LinkedIn than we are in trying to convince people to switch from LinkedIn to Plaxo. Fundamentally, the two service do different things well, with LinkedIn very focused on business networking for career advancement, and Plaxo offering a combination of a smart address book and a personalized news stream that brings that address book to life. When I connect with someone on LinkedIn, I get their email address and access to their online resume. When I add that person on Plaxo, I often get their contact info (including mobile phone) and get to see a richer view into their “lifestream.”
Give us a quick percentage breakdown of where or how you spend your time online on an average day.
JM: Is there such a thing as a typical day? I head up marketing at Plaxo, so I’m very externally focused. I have tabs open in my browser for Plaxo, FriendFeed, Twitter, Twitter Search, and Facebook. I’m an addicted user of all these tools, and they help me greatly to see what’s going on. I also blog quite a bit, and shoot a weekly Internet TV show at http://thesocialweb.tv. I also stay on top of news via Techmeme and Google News and all the top tech blogs.
As we all continue down this path of hyperconnection, which major social media trend do you think will guide the digital landscape five years from now?
JM: That’s actually a really easy question to answer – the opening up of the Social Web. The “walled garden” model of social networking died this year, and we are heading into 2009 with incredible momentum behind the new “open stack” (OpenID, OAuth, Portable Contacts, OpenSocial). The changes this will unleash will be as dramatic as the birth of the Web itself. The really big waves only come once every fifteen years on average. I am looking forward to another wild ride. This one may prove even bigger, as it is coincident with the iPhone/Android revolution that is putting a location-aware open compute/communication platform in our pocket. An example of the cool things becoming possible in a world of portable “people data” and location-aware mobile computers: the Obama iPhone app. The new Open Stack will enable anyone to build the next great killer social app.
Additional “People You Should Know”
Ning – Creating Your Social Network on the Fly
Chances are you’re either an active participant on social networking site Ning or have at some point visited a Ning site. Founded in October 2004, Ning was created with the intent of providing a basic, customizable platform for anyone and everyone to develop their own social network.
The beauty of the platform is that it requires no technical capabilities and similar to sites such as Facebook and MySpace, incorporates popular application tools that allow you to add photos, video, post events, create groups, generate discussions, etc. In addition, you can choose to make your network public or private as well as pay a small monthly fee to remove advertising for branding control.
As of October 2008, Ning announced that they surpassed 500,000 social networks. According to Lindsay Peifer, about 65% of those networks are active. As for user demographics, the site tends to skew toward 18-34 year olds.
If you’re working to build community, you may not need to jump in with starting your own network. It’s often easier and more strategic to seek out, join and engage in an online community as opposed to trying to start a community from scratch. As an example, I’ve made great use of Transplant Cafe as well as Twitter Moms for digging up appropriate people to connect with for various work projects. The simplistic search functionality of Ning makes it easy for you to do a quick assessment of existing networks and to gauge level of activity within that network.
At the least, you can always isolate your Ning URL to prevent being brandjacked in case you want to return to the site for future use.
There are a few disadvantages to the site including the overall broad notion that people may view the site as yet another networking site to join. That being said, remember, it’s free and it’s a good platform for creating niche communities.
Are you active on Ning? How have you made use of the site and what’s your assessment of the benefits or downfalls?
-Scott
