Ryan C. Miller.com - Social Media, Design, Tech, Commentary - broadcasting from Utica, NY

Start Sweeping

Posted on June 30, 2009 by MillerNo Comments

Shared Items - June 29, 2009

Posted on June 29, 2009 by MillerNo Comments

Best articles, photos, and general signs of cool from my Google Reader Feeds
• Talk About Iran And Other Worldwide Conversations

June 21, 2009

• Dunkin Run- Coffee Lovers Are Served

June 22, 2009

Michael Jackson At The Speed Of Light

Posted on June 26, 2009 by MillerNo Comments

I’m sure everyone is already sick of hearing about Michael Jackson - and its only been 24 hours. But I’ve read some really great articles on how news of his death traveled around the web, brought down websites, and why it matters. Its been a really interesting couple of hours and its made me think about the speed of information, authority and the social web.

On Speed
First, check out this article by SEOmoz. Its a timeline detailing the breaking of the story from the initial post, to TMZ.com’s post, to the explosion on Twitter, CNN, and eventually Google. Big ups to Danny Dover for a great article and cool research. According to Danny, it basically took just over an hour from the time a 911 call was placed to the story being posted on x17online and then TMZ. Within ONE MINUTE from the TMZ post the Wikipedia entry for Michael Jackson was already being updated. Then things really exploded. Check out the full post to see how it all shook down…

So where were you when you got the news? More importantly what time was it and HOW did you get it. I was in a client meeting when a co-worker got a text from her husband. We all then fired up our phones and hit Twitter, CNN, and got a deluge of information. By the time we sat down for a drink (about 5 mins after the meeting) - people at the bar were already talking about it. This was spreading FAST. And at that point the story was that MJ was in cardiac arrest. Which brings me to my next observation.

On Credibility
TMZ was the first ‘news source’ to say that Jackson had died. Here’s where it gets interesting. Lots of people’s first reactions were “well, have any MSM sources like CNN confirmed it?” At this point they were pretty far behind and whether that was due to sources or not having their own confirmation, the interesting thing is that people didn’t fully trust the TMZ report. So, its important to be first - but it’s also important to be credible.

Speaking of CNN, there was great article on how news of Jackson’s death was starting to bring down lots of major websites as word spread. Check out the article here - it’s a great read. From Perezhilton to TMZ to Twitter, lots of major sites were having major issues handling the traffic. At one point, Twitter was getting 1,500 Tweets per minute and news even brought down AOL instant messenger. That’s an amazing amount of traffic, and I would venture to guess more people than ever got news from a mobile device instead of a newspaper, TV, or a desktop.

I want to get back to Danny’s post for a minute. His argument was that Google has some serious catching up to do, as it took over 3 hours for ‘Michael Jackson Cardiac Arrest’ to appear in its suggested search results, which means that was 3 hours people didn’t use Google to get their information.

I don’t think that’s a big deal really. I understand that 3 hours is a long time in terms of the web, but I also think the real-time web is something that will play out over a variety of services (as we’ve just seen). Google can’t lead on everything, and quite frankly, I think it shows that in a rush people will just pick up the tool that is top of mind or most familiar to them. I hit Twitter first. Then CNN.com. Then Huffingtonpost. It didn’t occur to me to hit Google first because it was an extra step of having to put in a search query.

For me, the takeaway for businesses is that you need to play in all these different arenas, using tools that your users are comfortable with. Not just the one YOU are comfortable with. The only thought I’ll leave you with is that I found it astounding and amazing how fast news traveled - worldwide. Forget the Emergency Broadcast System, its too damn slow.

My question to you is - How did you get your info about Michael Jackson’s death? And where were you?  I’m curious…

State of the Twittersphere

Posted on June 22, 2009 by Miller1 Comment

Today I read a very interesting report on Twitter use from Hubspot.  Its their 2nd ‘State of the Twittersphere’ report.

There’s a lot of other great info in the report that you can download by clicking here (by the way big ups to Chris Brogan for bringing this to my attention).

After reading the report I was a bit surprised to say the least.  Especially when it seems like Twitter is mentioned incessantly on cable news, TV, and most recently as a catalyst for things that are happening right now in Tehran.  Its everywhere.  So why the huge amount of inactivity?

This data was gathered from 4.5 million users and there are some really surprising stats:

79.79% failed to provide a homepage URL
• 75.86% of users have not entered a bio in their profile
• 68.68% have not specified a location
• 55.50% are not following anyone
• 54.88% have never tweeted
• 52.71% have no followers
In an effort to quantify exactly how many dormant accounts exist, we labeled users as inactive if they satisfy all of the following conditions:
• Fewer than 10 followers
• Fewer than 10 friends
• Fewer than 10 updates
By this definition, 9.06% of all Twitter users are inactive.

First, I can’t tell you how many times in the past few months I’ve been at a party, family function, etc. when someone comes up and says “So, what exactly IS Twitter?”  Guh. It’s not that I don’t want to help… Its just that Twitter isn’t any ONE THING.  What it is depends on what you want it to be… Want to find cool links? Want to take customer service to the next level? Want to get loads of information on a particular industry or just find out if your customers are talking about your brand online?  Yeah, you can do that.  I really don’t think the ‘What Are You Doing’ description holds water anymore and for many people that are just getting started, that’s what they think tweets are: “Taking a dump.”  “Picking up the kids.”  “Eating a ham sandwich.”  If you’re going to tell me just what you’re doing … you’re not going to have a great expierince with this tool.

So I’m thinking that one of the biggest reasons behind the stats in the report is that people just don’t know what the hell Twitter IS, nor how to use it effectively.  That goes double for brands.  Maybe triple…  Its the openness that may be a tough thing for lots of people.  Facebook was easily definable as a tool - connect with people you know. Once you get there, you realize that there’s so much more to it, but at least there is a jump off point. Same with things like MySpace (find good music, connect with friends) and even Match.com (find a mate).  I don’t think Twitter has that yet.

So I guess I’ll leave this post with a couple of links and questions…  First, I wrote a post a couple months ago about how to Be Useful on Twitter. Its gotten a lot of positive feedback, so if you’re looking for a primer, maybe this can help.  On the other end of the spectrum, check out “How Not To Use Twitter” from Social Media Today (big ups to @theyinspire for passing the link along to me).

But what about you?  How to YOU use Twitter, and how would you describe it?  Or don’t you?

Shared Items - June 22, 2009

Posted on June 22, 2009 by MillerNo Comments

Best articles, photos, and general signs of cool from my Google Reader Feeds
• Does any iPhone app suck worse that the one from Sirius XM?

June 19, 2009

• Stubborn houses

June 11, 2009

• infoMania spoofs GM Reinvention commercial

June 12, 2009

• Charming

June 12, 2009

• Ruby slippers

June 13, 2009

• Textbook rant

June 14, 2009

Facebook Vanity URLs

Posted on June 16, 2009 by Miller6 Comments

photo by megandavid

So the Facebook vanity URL goldrush is on… In case you don’t know what I’m talking about, Facebook has basically announced that since this past weekend you could log in and get a username. Instead of getting to my FB profile with a long-ass url, you could hit up. www.facebook.com/ryanmiller315 - easier to remember, right? It fits on a biz card, or an email signature.

That’s the upside. The downside is that its first come first serve (not really a downside I guess) but once you choose your url, that’s it. You can’t change it. EVER. So before you decide you want your FB url to be BigSexy99, think again. Its like getting a really bad tattoo. My friend Katie has a good post on this as well that I caught as I was writing…

But inevitably there are going to be lots of Ryan Millers out there so the chance that I would get my own name was slim to none. Alas, I’m stuck with something less than ideal.

Where there has been a lot of excitement is when it was announced that brands (fan pages) can also get a vanity url. I could hit up www.facebook.com/cnn - again, easier to remember. The downside? You need to have at least 1,000 fans to qualify. So I really can’t get the hook up for my indie music fan page. That sucks.

But is this huge news for brands? Gary V. did a quick video about this announcement and thinks its a game changer. But I have to disagree. Sure, its convenient and for brands that are already playing in that space, its a nice addition and a welcome tool for establishing a presence on the network. But I don’t think its earth shattering.

Here’s why…
First of all, I think FB is a much better platform than MySpace was, in terms of organization, applications and visual layout. One of the reasons I think people left MySpace in droves was because it was almost too open. I couldn’t deal with dancing hamster backgrounds and Tide Detergent adding me as a friend when I wasn’t a fan to begin with. Facebook however, isn’t nearly as customizable as it could be and while its a good platform to interact with fans that are already on that platform - as a brand I have much more flexability for design and features on my own website (should I have the time and budget to invest in building what I want).

I’ve also read that this will be great from a marketing standpoint… But why would I market my facebook URL as a brand? I know its the next ‘cool thing’ but if you’re a business that is doing work in social spaces, marketing on Facebook alone isn’t going to cut it. Maybe you have a blog, a Twitter account, and a Facebook account… Why then would you market the Facebook page? I think its a better idea to get people to your website and link them off to the platform that they prefer. That’s not to say you shouldn’t be doing outreach on EACH platform, but to pimp your FB page on a billboard isn’t a battle plan.

So how could a brand still capitalize on this if they dont’ have 1000 followers or got beat in the gold rush? My advice is to standardize and redirect. If you’re a business and don’t own a domain name, (ryancmiller.com) spend the $10 and get one. You’ll be glad you did. Then I would make sure that all my pages on social networks are easily accessible from my main website or blog. And finally, if you want to pimp your facebook url but didnt’ get a vanity url - just build a simple redirect page (here’s how) that takes you to the Facebook Fan page when you hit www.yourdomain.com/facebook . Its simple. You can change it. and It Works.

What do you guys think? Does having a FB vanity url matter for people or brands? Is it a game changer? Am I full of crap? More importantly, did YOU get the url you wanted?