by Charlene Li

Facebook just announced "Facebook Connect", which they position as the natural evolution of Facebook as an open platform, which started from their initial API in 2006 and expanded with Facebook Platform in May 2007. This is how they describe Facebook Connect:

"Facebook Connect is the next iteration of Facebook Platform that allows users to "connect" their Facebook identity, friends and privacy to any site. This will now enable third party websites to implement and offer even more features of Facebook Platform off of Facebook – similar to features available to third party applications today on Facebook."

Details on the four main feature -- Trusted Authentication, Real Identity, Friends Access, Dynamic Privacy are below in the extended post. Overall, this means that all of the fun stuff that developers are building into apps on Facebook Platform will now be available for third-party developers to build into applications OFF of Facebook.com.

I spoke with Ben Ling at Facebook, and the hypothetical example he used was yelp.com. If I link my Facebook identity to my Yelp identity, I'll be able to port over my profile, my content, my reviews. Also, I'll be able to see if any my Facebook friends are also members of Yelp -- and be able to automatically have our friendships authenticated and visible on Yelp.

This is the beginning of the future I laid out earlier this spring, where social networks will be like air -- everywhere you need and want them to be. Facebook has a distinct advantage in this space, given its vibrant member base AND its relationships with developers who are already creating these social apps. Ben gave me some startling numbers: 24,000 Facebook applications, 350,000 developers on Facebook Platform, and 70 million Facebook users who have installed an app.

So in a few weeks, we can expect to see Facebook leaving the confines of its server, allowing users to take their Facebook experience anywhere they want. Instead of damaging itself and eroding the value proposition, Facebook is extending the reach of its social network through the Web.

With Yahoo! Open announcing and MySpace in the data portability game, it's now a battle not for just users, but a race to see who can open faster -- and more importantly, play well with other sites. Remember Facebook Beacon? That was an innovative program with partner details not very well thought out or implemented. I don't expect Facebook to make the same mistakes and if anything, they are ahead of the game having learned from that painful experience.

I did ask Ben about the timing of the announcement, coming as it does on the heels of MySpace announcing that it was joining the Data Portability Project. He said, "Openness is part of our DNA, We want to be transparent about our intentions, about the type of functionality we will offer to developers. There is a lot of mistaken perception that we are a close community."

So welcome to the race -- and look for a lot of interesting things to happen as the giants in this space - MySpace, Facebook, Yahoo!, Google, Microsoft -- all try to outdo each other in connecting with other sites. I for one am very much looking forward to it -- good bye social silos!

What "dream applications" would like to see developers build in this brave new world of social networks being extended into other sites? And what concerns do you have, especially if you work on a site that could be linked to these social networks? Let me know in the comments below or email them to me at cli at forrester dot com.

by Charlene Li

Yahoo! unveiled Yahoo! Open at O'Reilly's Web 2.0 Expo today. In a nutshell, Yahoo! is doing the following:

1. Rewiring Yahoo!. They are making it possible to create applications that can be shown throughout all of Yahoo!. That means search, mail, front page -- everything.

2. Open Yahoo! to developers like never before. Third party developers will be able to write applications that appear throughout Yahoo!. That's right -- you can write a mashup that integrates Yelp reviews into search results that appear anywhere -- on search results or even the home page.

3. Making Yahoo! more social. Yahoo! has over 10 billion connections lodged inside its various services -- think about all of the relationships expressed in address books, Messenger buddy lists, and most importantly, Yahoo! Mail flow. You'll be able to have your social graph appear throughout Yahoo! as a results (more on what this will look like below).

For me, this is a significant step forward in the next phase of social networks and the social Web. I wrote about this last month in a post about the future of social networks, where social networks will be like air. It makes no sense that your social connections be locked up in a social network -- when I receive a message within Facebook, there's no way to forward to it my work colleagues, friends, and family who are not on Facebook. And that significantly reduces the effectiveness and value of Facebook to me.

Yahoo! is clear that they are NOT creating another social network. Yahoo! CTO Ari Balogh said in his Web 2.0 Expo speech, "This is about making Yahoo! social in every dimension. Social is not a destination -- it's a dimension and it will infuse all aspects of a consumer's experience on the Web."

I couldn't agree more. Yahoo! is the foundation for hundreds of millions of users every month (Ari said that 500 million people worldwide use Yahoo! each month). But the real potential of this is that the social experiences that a person has on Yahoo! will be ported to other sites. In March, Yahoo! announced that it would support OpenSocial, meaning that applications developed for and on Yahoo! will be portable to other OpenSocial sites like Google and MySpace.

The potential here is that what will become portable is more than just the applications, but also the social graph of each Yahoo! member. There are still plenty of details to be worked out, in particular, control over each person's social graph. But in my discussions with Yahoo!, I'm confident that they will take the appropriate measures to ensure that each person has full control over how their activities and relationships are mapped, expressed, and revealed.

Ari didn't discuss specific timing, but I suspect that we'll see parts of Yahoo! Open rolling out over the next few months. I'm especially interested in seeing how Mail integration rolls out, especially the prospect of being able to implicitly map out my relationships. That's because I don't use Yahoo! Mail -- I use Gmail. Will Yahoo! enable me to reach into Gmail with its APIs and map out the relationships? I believe that they will -- after all, it behooves Yahoo! to bring me back into the Yahoo! network, even if I still keep my feet firmly planted in Gmail. 

The question inevitably arises -- is this a "Hail Mary pass" on the part of Yahoo! to fend off Microsoft? I think not. To Yahoo!'s credit, they have been focused -- as much as a company can be under the circumstances -- on executing on a strategy initiative that started last year. Regardless of how the Microsoft/Yahoo! dance turns out, Yahoo! will be setting a precedent for other portals and social networks to follow.

So it will be interesting to see how quickly the other players -- like Google, Microsoft, MySpace, and Facebook -- answer the challenge that Yahoo! has set down. I don't think it's a matter of if, but rather, a question of when.

I'd like to hear your thoughts about what a completely open, "social-ized" Yahoo! means to you. What experiences would you want? What concerns do you have?

by Charlene Li

Today I tried out Starbucks' new customer feedback and idea generation site at mystarbucksidea.com, which is powered by Salesforce Idea (it's the same product that's behind Salesforce's own Idea Exchange and Dell's Ideastorm).  Josh and I feature these two sites in our Groundswell book, as an example of how a company can execute an "embracing" objective.

On these sites, people like you and me can "share" an idea. Then other people can "vote" for them, and the ideas with the most votes float to the top.  People can "discuss" an idea by adding comments, and  finally, to close the loop, Starbucks will provide feedback and status reports on the most promising ideas.

The results: Starbucks "launched" the site on March 19th. The top idea as of today is for Starbucks to offer a "punch card" to provide a frequency discount or free drinks. It has 29,410 points, which means that 2,914 people have voted for it (each vote counts as 10 points). The site's "Ideas In Action" section has a post (sorry, no permalink!) has an entry on March 24th saying that this particular idea is being reviewed and will be incorporated into the Starbucks Card Reward program.

The reason why I was so intrigued with the Starbucks site is that I'm a loyal user of Starbucks, so I have plenty of ideas on how they can improve their service. Just how much do I use Starbucks? It's my default place to work on weekends (the empty office is too depressing and having spouse/kids at home is a recipe for non-work) and my remote office when I'm traveling. As a result, I know where the electrical outlets are at all of my local Starbucks and bring along an extension cord. I also have a list of Starbucks stores bookmarked on my phone browser.

What's impressive is that I'm feeling more connected with other Starbucks fans, especially those craving healthier breakfasts, automatic ordering with my Starbucks card (mine is a simple Grande decaf), and my pet peeve, more power outlets.

But Starbucks, please don't let this engagement end! I want to subscribe to your Ideas in Action "blog" via RSS so that I can find out more about what's new -- and to see if my favorite ideas are being implemented. I want to comment on your blog too, to let me know that I'm happy/not happy about your future decisions. Close the loop, and you've not only got me hooked, but I'll walk the extra block in NYC or drive the extra mile to go to you rather than another coffee house.

Update: It hit me that I'd like to know your experience with Starbucks Ideas. What do you like/don't like about it, and more importantly, what brands/companies would you like to see adopt something similar? I'm curious to see if you would participate and contribute more to personal, consumer brands like Starbucks, or if there's also an affinity to business-oriented companies like Salesforce.

by Josh Bernoff

Thanks for all your responses on the scale I posted. Recall that 10 is an extreme purist (power to the people!) and 0 is an extreme corporatist (power to the corporation!). I saw people coming in all over the scale.

Here's what I learned:

1. Nobody likes to be pigeonholed. I loved this from frymaster.

When I'm drinking [which is most of the time], I'm a 10. When I'm at the client I'm a 5. Unless I had a little nip, and then I'm a 7.

 

I also enjoyed Mark's attempt to add a dimension. People just can't get comfortable living on a line segment.

2. A lot of people seemed comfortable in the 5 to 7 range (or couldn't tell my definitions of 5 and 7 apart). Here are the definitions again.

7 The groundswell is powerful, but companies have a role in it. Groups of people inside of enterprises can get together and make themselves heard. Even so, the groundswell will always prevail over their interests.

5 Companies belong in the groundswell. They have interests just as the people do. They will set up corporate efforts -- presences in places like Facebook or their own corporate blogs -- and connect with their customers. They can't shut down or co-opt people in the groundswell, but they can form meaningful relationships with them. And they can accomplish goals like marketing or collaborative innovation, if they respect that they're not in charge.

Given the fact that our active readers are probably the biggest believes in the power of social, this shows an amazing tolerance for corporations. Maybe because to make a living doing this stuff, you have to give the corporation a role. I'm quite happy myself at 5 and expect to sell a lot of books to others who are comfortable there.

3. I was intrigued by the perception that people were moving. I especially liked this comment:

The last number [average of businesspeople you meet] is the one I see movement in every day...one at a time I'm seeing people who used to be 2 or 3 become a 4 or 5.

So here's the interesting question. Is the business world slowly creeping towards the middle, or headed towards the purist end? Are we going to end up with a balance between enlightened corporations and powerful people, or are the people just going to overrun the corporations and take over? I think how you answer this says a lot about everything you do while working in the groundswell.

by Josh Bernoff

(Cross-posted from our blog at harvardbusiness.org.)

People are not insects. So why is it so popular, in analyzing the surge of social activity online, to compare them to bees?

Here you see the covers of two recent books about social technologies, Barry Libert and Jon Spector's We Are Smarter Than Me and Larry Weber's Marketing to the Social Web. Both appear to be more hive than Web.

It doesn't stop there. Online contributions are typically referred to, in the aggregate, as buzz. There are dozens of companies in the buzz-monitoring business. Two of the prominent ones are Nielsen BuzzMetrics and BuzzLogic, which has got bees all over its site. Or, if you'd prefer to hire people to buzz about your product, you can always go to BzzAgents, which has got an angry (determined?) looking bee as its logo.

Language matters (see my rant against "users" which stirred up a hornet's nest . . . oops!). These books are pretty good and pretty interesting, and these companies are all successful at what they do. But from their covers and Web sites, you would think that all those contributors to the groundswell are diligent, interchangeable workers. This is the wrong image, folks. The groundswell is as heterogeneous as humanity itself. You're part of it. Are you an interchangeable part?

The fact is, the groundswell is made of people. Some of them are strident and vocal, some are quiet. Some like to gather in social networks, others in online forums. Their contributions are thoughtful, insipid, polemical, balanced, respectful, blasphemous, adoring, hateful, and any other adjective you can muster. You can use companies like BuzzMetrics to get a general idea of what's happening, or you can use companies like BuzzLogic and Visible Technologies to identify the influencers in your market, which could be far more important.

I think these bee images recur because they're easier to understand. Yeah, it's a lot of people out there contributing and interacting (We Are Smarter explicitly harks back to The Wisdom of Crowds in its marketing) but by thinking of them as bees in a hive, we become comfortable with their activity. Like all those busy little workers building Wikipedia. Ok, says the corporate strategist, I get that.

In fact, online activity is messy. It's characterized by flareups often driven by a single person with a creative idea, which never happens in beehives (lots of great instances are in Groundswell and in Citizen Marketers, for example). You can join it, influence it, deal with it, become a part of it. But no matter how much smoke you pump into it, it won't calm down as a beehive does. And that's because it's made of unique individuals, not worker bees.

by Josh Bernoff

It's time for me to weigh in on the question: can companies be part of the social world?

This is in part a reaction to Shel Israel's comments of a few months back and my colleague Jeremiah's Owyang's responses. But it's an ongoing issue that comes up often in the blogosphere in my conversations with corporate clients.

On the one side are the folks who say, "The social world is an emergent phenomenon generated by people connecting." The original Cluetrain Manifesto rails against many aspects of the corporate world and basically posits that the right way for companies to get involved is for people inside those companies to connect to their customers. Based on my recent participation at a Cluetrain event, Cluetrain author Doc Searls still harbors a lot of skepticism toward corporations pursuing goals in the social world. For shorthand, let's call these folks the Purists.

On the other side are companies who are looking at the social Internet and saying "how can we exploit this to do what we already do -- PR and advertising, for example?" PR and advertising are mostly one-way, broadcast type communications, and these folks continue to try to adapt those one-way modes of thinking in the two-way, read-write world of social computing. I'll caricature these folks as the Corporatists.

I'm here to stand up and proudly say, Purists and Corporatists, you're both wrong.

Here's how I suggest people in companies think about social computing.

If you're in a company, your company can participate. In fact, you must participate. Your customers and prospects are connecting and talking about your products and your company right now -- this is what we call the groundswell. You need to be a part of the conversation. You might start a blog, you might start a Facebook group, you might start a community, or begin twittering, but until you start connecting as a corporate employee, you won't understand what's going on out there. And it can and will bite you.

You also need to start with the recognition that you are not now, nor will you ever be, in control of this "channel," "world," "phenomenon," or whatever you want to call it. It goes its own way and it will continually surprise you. This is where the Purists are right and the Corporatists are fooling themselves. But this is not so new. When my colleague Charlene Li was writing about how to deal with Wikipedia, I suggested it's no different in some ways from the New York Times -- you can influence it, but you're not in charge of it. Same with the rest of the social world -- you can participate, but not control. If this scares you, great. If you can't deal with it, somebody else in your company had better head up your social technology efforts.

But the fundamental principle behind about 80% of our book Groundswell is that you can accomplish corporate objectives in the social world. This is what bugs the Purists. As a corporate staffer, you have no business in the groundswell unless you know what you are trying to do there. You could be trying to increase awareness, generate word of mouth, surface leads, save on support costs, on tap into innovation. But regardless, no corporate activity should go forward without a measurable goal, and this is no different.

So, do you participate as an individual or a corporation? Of course, as a corporation. Companies may be made of people, but those people are not free agents. Your boss needs to know what you're doing, and, we argue in the book, your top management should, too, since they're going to inevitably get some surprises from these efforts. You'll need budget (maybe not a lot), and you need cover. Sometimes you need to push the membrane that Rob Scoble and Shel Israel talk about, finding ways to stretch corporate attitudes just enough to succeed. But you'd better be aligned with the corporation's goals, if not necessarily its tactics and every single one of its rules.

There's a lot of talk about authenticity, too. But the tone I hear from some Purists seems to be that if it's corporate, it has to involve lying, or at least deception. Please. Corporations, like people, have interests. They can talk about their products and services honestly. Of course they will be pro-company -- that's authentic, to believe in what you're making. But a pro-company attitude doesn't prevent two-way communication. In fact, in idea-generating applications like salesforce.com's IdeaExchange, or Credit Mutuel's sijetaisbanquier.com, it's that give and take between customers and people inside the company that fuels the innovation.

Teams -- small teams -- get most social projects done. Corporate bloggers may need help with moderation. Specifying, managing, and moderating communities is not a one-person job. These applications work best when they support corporate goals anyway. That's what gets you backers within the company, not just fearful detractors.

So it is no sin to conceive, create, and deploy a corporate social application. If you have a clear objective and can measure it, you are even likely to succeed. Just recognize that you must start from authenticity, it's a dialogue, and that the social world cannot be controlled. The companies I work with are starting to do this. It's not impossible -- in fact, it's the beginning of an incredible transformation. And their participation won't kill the groundswell, it will make it richer.

by Josh Bernoff

I got a nice email from Jennifer McClure, Executive Director of the Society for New Communications Research. They're doing a survey on Customer Care and Brand Reputation in the Age Of Social Media.

Go ahead, take it yourself. They'll send you a free copy of the research.

While you're taking the survey, you might want to take a close look at question 30, which caught our eye. Here it is.

If this looks familiar to you, it may be that you saw something very like it in our research or right here on this blog. It's highly compatible with the Social Technographics ladder that we use to classify consumers.

Does this make our classification some kind of a standard?

We'll look forward to seeing the results of the research at their Forum April 22-25 in Sonoma.

by Josh Bernoff

Jake offered a paean to Cluetrain. Read my description -- see how many Cluetrain ideas you can see.

Jake McKee told us the incredible story of what Lego was like before engaging with AFOLs (adult fans of Lego), and how it changed as a result of his introduction of those fans to the company.

Jake explained that when he started there, Lego tried not to listen to its consumers: "we don't accept unsolicited ideas".

But an engaged kid spends about $25 per year. AFOLs spend on average $2000. Fans are weird. But their events attract lots of kids, and even media.

So, time for a culture shift. Jake began to evangelize the idea that "Lego is a creative medium" -- the AFOL's central idea.

First step: don't respect the hierarchy.

Second: use tenacity and get air cover (he got that from Tormod Askildsen, who's in our book).

Third: get the company to come down from its ivory tower. He proved that the fans new more about Lego than the people at the company. He invited fans in to look at a set of new products (Lego trains) -- which they rejected. Result: the designers redesigned the sets based on the fans' feedback.

Fourth: there are no secrets. Jake released information about bricks for the fans, which created an internal uproar -- until he proved that the "secret" wasn't much of a secret. And Jake repeats (and I agree) -- skip the NDA. NDAs inhibit conversation. (For the record, I respect NDAs, but I find them frustrating.) Lawyers want to reduce risk to zero -- but that is not what business is about.

Fifth: don't hold your breath.  Change takes time. "A big part of my job was to get people out of the office to visit" events -- see what's happening out there. Jake tells an incredible story of how after exposing some marketing people to a Lego event, he had to explain why people engage in hobbies.

Sixth: the answers are not within the company. AFOLs had built their own tools where they shared everything from the contents of Lego sets to photo sharing. "There were so many tools, I didn't have to build anything." Lesson here: don't build tools if your community already has them.

Summation: "Success by 1000 paper cuts." Don't start with a huge program, build small piece by small piece. "Your company has a fan club" -- go for it.

Listening to Jake's story, I heard a lot of echoes of themes we talk about in the book -- getting cover, starting small, reaching out to customers, letting them take charge. If Lego can do it, so can you!

by Josh Bernoff

Doc Searls started his talk at the Cluetrain @ 10 event talking about the genesis of The Cluetrain Manifesto. This was fascinating to me. He started with reflections of the overblown 90's (Push, Pointcast). "Customers treated as plankton." A reaction to the overblown venture investments in "capturing eyeballs" in the 90s.

The genesis of a lot of those ideas as he described (e.g. 95 theses, "markets are conversations") sounds as if it wasn't all that thoughtful. And didn't take that long to write. But what made these ideas so fresh and powerful (my opinion here) is that it was obvious to them long before anyone else was even thinking about it. The cluetrain authors were unafraid to talk about it frankly. And -- this is important -- they had each other to bounce things off of.

Does it hold up after 10 years? Rereading it -- and listening to Doc -- it does. The strident tone seems a bit "of its time" -- that is, they were screaming about things you don't have to scream about any more. But the content seems as true as it did when it was written.

But Doc has remained way out in front of what's happening, rather than consolidating the gains we made in getting to the Cluetrain world.

I love Doc's take on Web 2.0. He implies that O'Reilly's emphasis on the software is misplaced -- and wants to know why he uses advertising as his first example. I concur. The real change is about people and how they relate to business -- software is the enabler. Fascinating, as Doc points out, that Google search "Web 2.0" search yields ads about Advertising.

He's still got a problem with advertisers and advertising -- including on Facebook. Searls' updated theses (numbering is not a mistake -- he skipped a few)

1. Advertising as we know it will die.

2. Herding people into walled gardens and guessing about what makes them "social" will seem as absurd as it actually is. (Facebook is his example.)

3. We will realize that the most important producers are what we used to call consumers. (Yup.)

4. The value chain will be replaced by the value constellation. (Many connections.)

5. "What's your business model?" will no longer be asked of everything. (What's the business model for your kids?)

6. We will make money by maximizing "because effects". ("Because effects" are what happen when you make more money because of something than with it.) E.g. search and blogging.

8. We will be able to manage vendors at least as well as they manage us. (Agreements between companies and customers shouldn't be skewed in favor of the companies.) At Harvard Law they call this VRM -- vendor relationship management -- which is what Searls is working on (projectvrm.org).

10. We'll marry the live web to the value constellation. (The Live Web isn't just about stars. Relationships of anybody to anybody.)

Examples: The personal RFP -- find me what I need (driven by buyer not seller) I should be able to manage my own health care data. I should be able to inquire and relate to whole markets on the fly.

Here's my take on all this. I am pleased that Doc is still rattling cages. And I think he makes a lot of good points.

Respectfully: I think this is still a little naive about companies and how they behave. "Companies should" statements don't typically get companies to go along. So I wish there was more engaging with companies in this speech.

As the cluetrain audience here will hear from me in a few hours, I think Doc is still a radical -- a bomb-thrower, a provocateur. But to create real change, you have to be a revolutionary -- someone who engages with the powers that be to create major change. We need radicals. But we need revolutionaries too.

by Josh Bernoff

Is a recession coming? Don't ask me -- I'm not an economist, and even the economists don't really know. But if it's anything like the last recession, advertising will plummet and experimental media will crater. (In the 2001 recession, US advertising dropped 9% and Internet advertising plummeted 27%, according to Veronis Suhler Stevenson.)

But do not panic. Things are different this time.

Here's what smart marketers should know:

• It's not a tech bubble. The last recession was caused by the dot-com bubble and the terrorist attacks. There was a lot of ignorant money out there chasing illusory opportunity, and companies had overinvested in technology. This time, the precipitating event is a housing bubble, and technology spending is not irrational.

• Awareness ads will lose effectiveness. Advertising (or as we often call it, "shouting") is mostly about generating awareness and reinforcing brands. In a recession, ordinary consumers like you and me aren't as willing to spend. Sure, we'll be aware of the product, but that doesn't make so much difference when you're worried about your future. Advertising is expensive and is a lot easier to cut than headcount. Many are predicting ad spending will hold up; I'm not so sure.

• But social applications are about consideration, not awareness. Blogs, word of mouth, social networks . . . they're about people connecting with other people. You may resist advertising if your finances are tight, but if your bud tells you that new movie is really worth seeing or that the Gap has the cutest new tops, that's more persuasive than advertising. Basically, in a recession, the consideration phase is more important than awareness -- and that's where advertising flops and social applications succeed.

• It's cheap. Social applications can be nearly free (think blogs, Ning.com, facebook pages) and even more sophisticated communities are typically $30K to $200K -- a lot cheaper than a significant sized ad campaign. After our last post, all the responses were positive. One interactive marketer from a highly cyclical company told us this:

"Budgets are tight in light of the economic conditions as you surmise, but [the budget for social applications] has not been impacted. We are still keen to move forward with our trial and have support….at this point anyway.  Interactive in general has been more protected than other comms areas and saw an increase."

• It's measurable. If your social application doesn't have a measurable output, you'd better get one. But if it does -- if it generates leads, or conversions, or buzz, or something useful -- then you can prove it's working. beinggirl.com is four times as effective as TV ads, Procter & Gamble told us. That won't get cut in a recession.

These same arguments apply to some other forms of online marketing, including search ads and email marketing. Those are going to be good investments in a recession. If you're smart, you'll position yourself now with proof your apps are working. Then when the ad dollars get tight, you'll be in good shape.

Click here to see what we wrote for our clients (we've made this piece of research free for everyone).

Also on this topic, see also David Armano's post on 10 ways digital can help you thrive in a recession. And an earlier Paul LaMonica post (CNN Money) featuring my old colleague Jim Nail.

Finally: I'm anticipating this topic might get some currency around the blogosphere and the mediasphere . . . if you want to follow the reactions, tune in to my twitter feed at twitter.com/jbernoff

by Josh Bernoff

I'm just curious -- corporate social strategists: Are you getting pushback in the face of the potential recession? Are your budgets being cut? Or maybe increased?

Add your comments here or email me at jbernoff (at) forrester.com -- I'd love to hear from you.

by Josh Bernoff

We don't normally do political polling. But when we did our last Social Technographics survey I got sneaky. I asked people who they were voting for. The result is a fascinating peek into the minds and social behaviors of voters. The full report is available to Forrester clients here, but I'll share the data we published with all of you blog readers below.

First, for your reference, here's the social technographics ladder again, most current version. As we described this spring, it show how people are at different levels of participation in social activities, and the groups can overlap.

Just as with business travelers, we can apply this to any group of people we can identify. So let's see how social participation differs among Democrats, Republicans, and Independents. (For the purposes of this survey we classified people who usually vote Democrat as Democrat and people who usually vote Republican as Republicans -- the Independents are those who don't consistently vote one way or another. There weren't enough third-part types for us to get their profile.) Here's the data (over 10,000 online people surveyed nationally):

Right away you can see there is a persistent tendency for Democrats to participate more fully in social technologies. Looking at the index (all adults = 100), you can see that Democrats are at least 10% more likely to do just about anything involving social technologies. The Republicans are the opposite -- they're a lot LESS likely to participate (like Nixon's "silent majority"). They're 22% less likely to be a social network (Joiners) and 21% less likely to be uploading video or blogging (Creators). These are not extreme differences, but there are definite tendencies here, likely correlated to the fact that Republicans tend to be older than Democrats on the average. Notice that the Republicans are near par for Spectators, though -- they're watching, even if they're not as active participants. The Independents are somewhere in the middle, approaching the average in Joiner and Critic activity.

Now let's look at it by who people are voting for. Here's how the Democratic field looks (these are the top four most popular candidates in our national survey; we included Al Gore in the survey in case he decided to enter the race). Remember, these are the profile of the candidates' supporters.

There are important differences among democrats. One in three Obama voters is a Joiner, which may be helping the my.barackobama.com strategy. Edwards voters (62% Spectators) are the most likely to be consuming social applications; Clinton voters are the least, with only 49% Spectators and 42% Inactives. 34% of Gore voters are Critics -- he ought to connect with them in some sort of community or forum to make them a force for his issues in the general election. Obama, Clinton, and Edwards voters are all rich with Creators (at least 22% of their supporters) -- energize those voters and they'll start getting the Spectators excited.

The profile of supporters of Republicans is perhaps the most revealing:

Note the relatively anemic levels of Creator participation -- no Republican gets above 16%. The Creators are the voters who energize everybody else with their contribution. As we get into the general election, which of these candidates can energize the online social world? (Ron Paul, who didn't get enough votes in our poll to generate a profile, clearly could, but it seems unlikely that he'll get the chance.) It's also interesting that Mitt Romney's supporters are more active than the rest of the Republicans' -- he ought to be doing more than just having his offspring blog.

Interestingly, while as far as I know we haven't been contacted by the candidates since we published this research, we have been getting some interest from other companies. Why? Because marketers see the social drama playing out in the election and want to see what lessons can be drawn for their own brands.

Listen folks -- I can do this type of analysis for just about any group of consumers. What would you like to see next?

by Josh Bernoff

Charlene's April post about the Social Technographics ladder got picked up by hundreds of bloggers -- no surprise since it's some of the only hard data out there about how different people participate in social technologies.

Now it's time to show how that data can be put to use.

In the previous post I talked about the POST method of social strategy, the first step of which is PEOPLE. You can't undertake as strategy until you know the behaviors of your audience. But how do you analyze those behaviors?

At Forrester we solved this problem with a survey that asked not just about social behaviors but about many, many other behaviors of consumers. The result is we can create a Social Technographics Profile of just about any group.

For example, have a look at these two graphics, which are the Social Technographics Profiles of people who travel. (For the definitions of the six groups I refer you back to the Social Technographics ladder. And remember, since the groups overlap, they add to more than 100%).

What can you learn from these? First of all, leisure travelers participate in social activities at about the same rate as average online adults. So if you're planning on using social networks, or blogs, or other forms of social applications with them, you can expect some participation. But just like average Americans, 43% of them are Inactives -- you won't be able to reach this segment.

Business travelers are different. The index of 150 for Creators means that these folks are 50% more likely to blog, upload videos, or indulge in other social creation activities compared to average Americans. They're more likely to be Critics (people who react to others' content), Joiners (people in social networks) and especially, Collectors (people who use RSS or voting sites like Digg).

If you're selling business travel, now you know that you have a high chance of success with a discussion forum, you could probably ask your customers to upload pictures and have it work, you should have an RSS feed, and you may want to look at marketing through LinkedIn or Facebook. All of these are more powerful for business travelers than leisure travelers.

What should you actually do? Well, that depends on your objectives. Start with People, go on to Objectives, then follow up with Strategy, and finish with choosing a technology (POST, remember?).

If you find this interesting you should know:

• Sarah Rotman Epps' insightful report on travel and Social Technographics is available to Forrester clients here. That's where I stole the graphics from.
• There are a dozen similar graphics in Groundswell. This data is part of the value we're trying to create in the book. It's behind everything.
• We can use this to analyze anything from Toyota owners to online banking customers to Target shoppers. We are building these questions into nearly all of our surveys moving forward so we can score just about anything.
• And if you've gotten this far, stay tuned. On Monday we'll display the Social Technographics of voters -- Democrats, Republicans, and supporters of the top presidential candidates.

I think data like this is fascinating. Do you?

by Josh Bernoff

Interested in our report "Objectives: The Key To Creating A Social Strategy?" The report describes the POST method in detail (see previous post).

I'll send a review copy to the first 100 bloggers to email me at groundswell@forrester.com.

Include your blog's URL with your email. Looking forward to hearing your take on this.

by Josh Bernoff

What do most companies do wrong when they enter the social world? No, it's not that they're being fake, or don't "get it." It's that they don't really know their objectives.

Is your company doing its social strategy backwards?

If you started by saying "we should do a blog" or "we should create a page on a social network" or "we should create a community" the answer is probably yes.

In any other business endeavor we start by figuring out what we want to accomplish. Social technologies are not magic. They accomplish things, too. It's time to stop doing social because it's cool. It's time to start doing it because it's effective.

To help clients with this fundamental idea, we invented a little acronym called POST. It's been one of the most popular ideas we've ever created, even though it's so simple and commonsensical. If you were at our consumer forum in October you saw it (and many of you who were there contacted us afterwards for help with your strategies). It's at the heart of our book Groundswell. Now I'm sharing it with all of you.

P is People. Don't start a social strategy until you know the capabilities of your audience. If you're targeting college students, use social networks. If you're reaching out business travelers, consider ratings and reviews. Forrester has great  data to help with this, but you can make some estimates on your own. Just don't start without thinking about it.

O is objectives. Pick one. Are you starting an application to listen to your customers, or to talk with them? To support them, or to energize your best customers to evangelize others? Or are you trying to collaborate with them? Decide on your objective before you decide on a technology. Then figure out how you will measure it.

S is Strategy. Strategy here means figuring out what will be different after you're done. Do you want a closer, two-way relationship with your best customers? Do you want to get people talking about your products? Do you want a permanent focus group for testing product ideas and generating new ones? Imagine you succeed. How will things be different afterwards? Imagine the endpoint and you'll know where to begin.

T is Technology. A community. A wiki. A blog or a hundred blogs. Once you know your people, objectives, and strategy, then you can decide with confidence.

This may sound simple to the sophisticated readers of this blog. But it works. Try it. Think your strategy through. Even if you're just clarifying your own strategy, this should help you explain it to your boss.

Or, feel free to ask us for help. it's what we do.

Thanks to all the bloggers who've posted after our presentations and encouraged us to get this out there.

UPDATE: Free review copy of the report to the first 100 bloggers who email me at groundswell@forrester.com with your blog's URL.

by Josh Bernoff

I just met with Elance President and CEO Fabio Rosati.

If you don't know the site, it's best described as an eBay for services. Need a logo, some code, or a contract reviewed? Search for providers. Need work? Bid on projects.

Timothy Ferris has endorsed it (video right on the home page) which makes sense -- Elance is quite useful if you're trying to outsource most of your job and get a 4-hour workweek.

The company claims 70,000 active members, split nearly evenly between those doing the hiring and the freelancers who do the work. At the current run rate they're processing $48 million a year of business. Elance makes money from membership fees and taking a 6.75% to 8.75% cut on transactions. That sounds high, but it also includes the credit-card fees. Not everyone is happy with the fees,  but Fabio claims as the number of members goes up he'd like to bring the fees down.

While this is a successful formula -- they help you find trusted people by tracking their reviews, like eBay -- and we expect it to continue, here are a few nuggets that came to mind:

• We find it interesting that the company is concentrating on the small business market. Small businesses often don't have all the skills they need and need to outsource, but don't have a big bureaucratic process for hiring freelancers. We've seen that small business is a sweet spot for lots of service-oriented communities, like Constant Contact's ConnectUp! and Quickbooks' community. If you're in the B2B space and have a choice, start with a small business community.

• Having established a community of 70,000 people, there's a lot more to make out of Elance. Like Quickbooks, they should set up discussion forums about solving small business and freelancer problems (e.g. how to get the word out, how to hire your first employee, dealing with family members who want free stuff) that they all have in common.

• Elance concentrates on "virtual" services that can be delivered electronically (think proofreading, graphic design, technical writing). But small businesses need lots of other kinds of freelance help (on-site bookkeeping, interior design, photography). The difference -- the suppliers need to be local. Fabio told us the site is beefing up its local search -- now they should expand the types of services that can be sold.

Would you use this service? How would you improve it? And if you've had experience with these guys -- good or bad -- send me a comment.

Tags: Elance, bernoff, Forrester Research, Groundswell

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by Charlene Li

As a parent, I've been privy to the burning question this holiday shopping season -- how do I get my hands on a Wii? I've had one for a while and can honestly say that it is by far the best console for a family with young kids. (Or even for a family where the only kids in the household are the adults!)

The reality is, Wiis will be nearly impossible to find before the holidays given the overwhelming demand and lack of supply. So unless you're willing to pay a 2X premium on eBay or Amazon, you're out of luck. But I have a family friend who is an expert on finding Wiis using a variety of technologies and techniques -- and I thought I'd share some of his techniques with you.

So herewith are my top ten ways on how to score a Wii in the next week or so, both online and in brick & mortar stores. (Shameless plug: I also have one on eBay as a charity auction.)

=====Online Approaches=====

1) Read Fat Wallet. Fat Wallet has an excellent discussion forum that talks about Wii availability. The very first page has some good general information on online/mobile alerts and general availability. Go all the way to the last listed page (it was #581 when I posted) to find the latest buzz. West Coast folks can really benefit, especially on Sunday mornings when some stores release Wiis. This is the groundswell at its best -- supporting each other on the search for that elusive Wii.

2) Use Wiialerts.com and be near a PC. This service sends SMS/Text messages to your phone when an online store has Wiis in stock. For example, Amazon listed Wiis at 10:20pm PT on November 30th and were sold out within 12 minutes. So it pays to be fast, and connected.

3) If you're always online, use XPBargains.com. This site has a Wii Locator that is regularly updated. The trick is getting notified. A few approaches: 1) Use their RSS feed;  2) Use a Firefox plug-in called Check4Change which refreshes the page every 15 seconds and sends a desktop pop-up when something changes on the site. Highlight the first four lines of the listings and C4C will tell you when the status changes; and 3) Set up a desktop alert via Klipfolio -- XPBargains has a tutorial on how to do this.

4) Buy Wii Bundles. I've noticed that online sites like Wal-Mart (thanks to XPBargains) often have Wii bundles with accessories and games, which can cost +$500. If you're intent on getting a console soon, you're going to be paying that much for just the console alone through sellers one eBay/Amazon. You'll also need extra remots/nunchucks and games anyway, so you may as well buy the bundle. Don't like the games? Retailers like Wal-mart appear to be willing to exchange the games, and you may even be able to return them.

=====Offline Approaches=====

5) Use Salescircular.com to plan offline excursions. This is great because it breaks down the Sunday newspaper circulars by geography and then by product. So I can check California listings for Wiis across all retailers on one page. In general, if a retailer advertises it, they have to have a least a few Wiis on hand. The reality is that it could be 2, it could be 50. You just never know.

6) Set your alarm clock. People are getting desperate out there -- Fat Wallet reported Black Friday-like crowds out there this Sunday morning. Your best bet is to head to stores with early opening hours, like ToysRUs. Plan to get there 2-4 hours ahead of time. Some stores hand out vouchers before opening -- which means you can go home, head to Denny's for breakfast, etc. and come back later in the day to pick up you Wii. Be sure to bring your laptop if you have wireless access -- you'll want to continually check Fat Wallet for access. (Besides, it will keep you warm too!)

7) Recruit at least one other person to go with you, and then Twitter/SMS. If decide to go out for an early morning hunt, then try to find someone else to go out with you. Take separate cars so that you can go to separate stores to check out the situation. Ask the person at the front of the line what the status is -- they will usually tell you if vouchers have been given out, how many units are available. Then text or Twitter your teammates and head off to the next store on your list. Note: If you get there after a friend, don't cut in line! You wouldn't like it someone who was #5 in line suddenly had 4 buddies stroll up an hour before opening, ruining your chances. Do not tempt the ire of Wii-feverish parents!

8) Don't give up too early. You get there with 20 people ahead of you in line. They tell you that employees have shared they have only 20 Wiis in stock. Don't leave yet! On Black Friday, I was at a GameStop in Stockton with family members who were 35 or so in line when only 20 Wiis were available. They didn't hand out vouchers, so they stood in line for an hour. As they snaked up to the front, people were leaving with only a game or two in hand, bypassing the chance to buy a Wii. Two family members got the last two Wiis. So you never know.

9) Rely on the kindness of strangers and by kind to store employees. In many ways, the success of the groundswell -- both online and offline -- is that strangers are so willing to help each other when they are united by a quest, especially when you're standing at 5am outside a store. Bring a thermos of coffee -- and extra cups. Offer to hold places in line for each other for Starbucks breaks. And best of all, share and hear the stories of the people in line. There are other techniques, such as harassing store employees to tell you what time deliveries are made -- don't bother. They can't/won't tell you because of security reasons and frankly, many don't know. And they often have to stand in the very same lines you do to get their Wiis.

=====Shameless Plug=====

10) Buy the Wii I have up for charity auction. I braved the crowds on Black Friday and was first in line at a GameStop that morning, so snagged a Wii. My goal - to sell the Wii on eBay for the Ngererit School in Kenya that my husband and I support. We visited it 5 years ago and were struck by the desperate need for a new building.  So if you're going to just go ahead and buy a Wii at a premiumn anyway, I hope you'll consider buying this unit as the profits go towards funding a school, rather than into someone's pocket.   

by Charlene Li

The video highlights from our Consumer Forum 2007 are now available. Josh and I were keynotes and we spoke in details about some of the key highlights from our book. Below is a summary of the keynote speakers and speech topics. In particular, I highly recommend the speeches by Christie Hefner and Henry Jenkins.

***Note that you need to use Internet Explorer to use the navigation and see the slides.***

by Josh Bernoff

When it comes to blogging, faster is often perceived to be better. GigaOm and TechCrunch are all over the trends, covering the same announcements, often within minutes of each other. I've become even more aware of this as I've sp