I love to talk about social media with enthusiasts of the game. How they’re practising it, where they see the benefits, where will it be in a year or so’s time. But I see more and more so-called specialists coming into the market where they sell their (apparent) expertise to businesses that either don’t have the time or the wherewithal to handle social media themselves.

I’m certainly not criticising SMEs sourcing some talented help, I’m saying be careful what help you’re canvassing. Too may of these marketing experts are one-trick ponies. They sell digital, or marketing but it’s often just social media and nowt much else.

One of my favourite quotes about social media is from Avinash Kaushik, and goes, “Social media is like teen sex. Everyone wants to do it. No one actually knows how. When finally done, there is surprise its not better.”

As a consultant, just going on and on about Facebook or Twitter to a small business that needs marketing, wider business support and outside intuition is like telling a restaurateur that they need to focus, focus and focus yet more on dessert. Okay, it’s fair dinkum for a restaurant manager/owner to spend time and resource on desserts. Yet she also needs to look at the HR side of the business, of finance and infrastructure, of supply and sales, of quality and of appearance. The amount of various business tasks and facets mean dessert is probably less than 2% of their agenda, even if you are a Heston Blumenthal.

So it becomes a question of resources (isn’t it always in business). Yes, I’ll invest in dessert but the myriad of other draws will also get their deserved piece of business attention.

If you’re a Facebook or Twitter coach/marketer/consultant I’d argue you could widen your remit and envelop marketing – at least in a digital context. The alternative leaves a pretty narrow menu (unless you can live off dessert).

Photo credit: Corsi

Social networking is all the rage with web and mobile usage catching business’s eye with the Web 3.0.

Sony launched their cloud-based content service, Qriocity, recently. With their product range and reach, they should get some traction for their downloads.

IBM is set to, according to Jeffrey Schick, IBM’s VP of Social Software, “better connect people with people and people with information.” They’ve had their own internal global networking for 15 years and they plan on giving the business world access to this type of software in the cloud.

And, of course the world has gone wild with Apple’s Ping. Again that’ll get traction, but the blogosphere is arguing over whether they’ll rival Facebook or not. They wont. Nothing will. Facebook is like coffee: it appeals to pretty much everybody.

No one will surpass Facebook’s numbers for take up. There are plenty of other social networks, and there’ll be loads more to come but none will hold a candle to FB. It’s been the Ford [motors] of the web, a revolution and game changer that might fade over time but whose originality and scale can’t be emulated.

What they will do is be ‘more’ social. More specific, more like-minded, less scattergun. A contact will be more of a contact rather than a random insignificant ‘friend.’

And the killer difference with the less is more approach of Apple is that they’ve got consumers, not users (credit cards linked to iTunes!). Jobs isn’t interested in getting everyone’s granny onboard for free, he’ll leave that to Facebook.

I know it’s living within iTunes but it’s just a shame Ping’s URL has gone on that pesky social networking updating site (ping.fm) and the golf firm (ping.com).

I met someone this week that thinks they were burgled because they tweeted that they were away from home (i.e. London, when their location says Brighton). Such scare stories are only more likely as location-based services begin to make traction.

Foursquare, Gowalla, Brightkite, Loopt, Yelp etc are still in their relevant infancies but with Facebook launching Places and smartphone take-up sky rocketing, these services/games are going to thrive. They’re not there yet simply because the reason for broadcasting isn’t compelling enough.

Somewhat negatively for a social media darling, Chris Brogan wrote recently, “I’m just not always keen on decloaking for social-only reasons.” I wouldn’t if I was him either; with 146,000 Twitter followers he’s going to be mobbed and spammed big time.

Users are struggling to find a real value in location at the moment but with generation Y willing to publish everything about themselves, I can’t imagine decloaking and revealing location being a worry for them. It’s more likely the opposite as they ‘like’ and ‘check in’ at bars, cafes, clubs, shops and places all over world.

As usual, John Battelle voices the clearest business connect, “…location aware services are not yet a cultural habit, in particular ambient ones. But it won’t be long before we assume that our public presence is, in effect, a search, one for which we will expect a response from any number of potential respondents.”

There are some clever early adopters though. Example: Daily Candy will point you to ‘current local happenings like designer sales, spa deals, and underground concerts,’ as you travel around New York, but we’ve not really seen anything yet.

So marketers will create places pages inside Facebook and scramble to offer you discounts to broadcast you’re in the cinema, coffee shop or wine bar. And, inevitably, the privacy debate will become mainstream news (read ACLU’s concerns).

Location is marketing’s unconquered frontier (and privacy the debate to come). But not for much longer.

Photo credit: Kerryvaugan

At their best, blogs offer insight and intelligence, none moreso than Seth Godin’s daily brain dumps. Seth goes futher than most in that he often throws out free business ideas and free ebooks.

I’ve not had a chance to digest all of his latest offering but it looks similar to his usual fare: short, digestable, direct and thought provoking. Even better is the fact he got 70 odd important people to contribute “important ideas… including Tom Peters, Jackie Huba and Jason Fried…”

Just read Tom Asacker’s post on frustration and I needed to rebroadcast:

Marketers, we need you now, more than ever, to be the voice of value creation for the benefit of your organizations and other brand constituents (customers, suppliers, communities, et al). So please don’t let the frustration, and persistence, of the Social Web ecosystem cause you to aimlessly invest those scarce resources in “following,” “friending” or “tweeting.”

Some are proving there is a benefit to social media but don’t forget Twitter, Facebook, etc are all tools. Merely tools, not the whole ball game itself. If your business is using them successfully then kudos to you. If you’re employing them but not gaining value, then you must realise they’re no longer tools, they’ve become toys.

Does anyone rave on about email, fax or telephone use in business anymore? When did you last hear someone brag about their team’s wonderful clearing of their inboxes? All very useful, but tools nonetheless.

Well, that’s my prediction. They’ll stop burning dollars acquiring paper mills and fork out $750+ million for Twitter.

Twitter is the most popular and certainly the most talked about social media tool of the moment, yet there’s no clear indication on how they’ll monetise the whole shebang. They raised another $35 million in venture capital last month but to what end?

If you concede that Google want to know far more about you and your digital habits along with the world at large, this source would make an obvious acquisition. The speed at which trends and news appear on Twitter is unmatched elsewhere on the web. Google could leverage this into their algorithm and gain much more real-time searching (certainly opposed to Google News).

Of course, we’re not privy to the magic that’s being created right now in Mountain View where Google’s rocket scientists wave their wands over the web with reckless talent. Have they got a Twitter-killer waiting in the wings? Personally I doubt it. And if they have, will it be another Google Video which was always the poor cousin to YouTube – remember Google later bought YouTube purely to get that online video foothold?

They’re into harvesting strategies and don’t need to monetise everything immediately. Again, YouTube teaches us that. So the lack of income at Twitter won’t be such a problem; the data is the treasure worth the capital outlay. Although, Twitter wont keep its monopoly forever – when you show the market what’s it’s capable of, it rarely stands and applauds for long. Immitation is immenant.

Then again, others might get to the buy-out first. Facebook is reported to have offered $500 million and Carol Bartz could do with creating some buzz about Yahoo other than dismal reports of staff exoduses. Either of these firms would be salivating at the thought of gaining those 6 million Twitterers and all that live data.

What do you reckon? Do you think Google will crush Twitter, buy Twitter or just look at it like a play-thing in the corner?

Plenty of bloggers are spouting New Year’s resolutions. Most are quaint rehashes of being less avaricious, and showing greater care to one’s fellow man and the weighing scales simultaneously.

Forget resolutions, try predictions. J.K. Galbraith said ‘there are two types of forecasters: those who don’t know and those who don’t know they don’t know’, but there’s always Tom Asacker. He hits it right between the eyes with his article, “Nine Predictions for 2009.” As ever, he is articulate, succinct and on the money (at least that’s my prediction).

Newspapers are in their twilight years. With every print run, they step closer to oblivion. Of course, you’re smart and you know full well that they exist for advertisers, not news, and there lies the rub: ad revenues are dwindling at an alarming rate. Oh, but what to do with that high brand equity and shrinking readership? Go online, right? Surely they’ll read us [insert major name] on tinterweb and we can sell banner ads instead of print ones?

If they’re half as committed to that oversimplified strategy as I believe they are, why don’t they help us digest their content more easily? Granted, they’re much better than they were (understanding that we don’t want to log in to read was a real boon) but much boundary pushing is needed if they’re going to carve a real niche out of the net.

Next to Google Earth, RSS is the best thing about the Internet. It’s simple and brilliant. Instead of typing in dozens of web addresses to check out what’s new, you can tell the web which sites you’d like to read and watch them all come into one page (or reader) as and when they refresh themselves. Instead of buying a paper or magazine which will have a good proportion of waste (i.e. I won’t read) Google can deliver 100% relevant content to any desktop or mobile device I choose – for free. Helpful. Genius. Time saving. Wonderful.

Not so the experience you’ll find online at most of our British newspapers. Check out this article by Timothy Fadek at the Guardian.co.uk (note: no RSS in their address bar). Where is the feed for this page? There’s the usual social networking buttons, but what about a longer term buy-in? Sure, you can subscribe to the RSS feed from the business home page and get hooked up. The trouble is, it feeds you the whole of the business section (approx 270 posts per week) not the daily missives of your chosen journo or subject.

Telegraph.co.uk and timesonline.co.uk (what a dreadful URL) help you a wee bit by offering a selection of feeds, but they’re insufficient. You’ve got more chance of most writers cooking you dinner tonight than giving you an easy to find RSS feed. It’s a genuine shame that their technology is missing such an opportunity to gain attention and eyeballs.

A 20 second brainstorm on what could be better:

• Allow us to plug in to ANY correspondent/writer;
• Allow us to filter the feed by keyword or tag e.g. I want Brian Moore at the Telegraph.co.uk (actually possible if you’re persistent in your quest) but only on international rugby, not his club rugby, football or general pieces;
• Allow us to skew to excerpt or full text (don’t force me to your site to read a whole article – it’s just tight);
• Allow us to take the feed live, daily, weekly or monthly (as a magazine would arrive);
• Allow the feed on keyword only but across all sections e.g. Lewis Hamilton could be in several areas other than F1 sport; and,
• Allow a matrix of any the above.

RSS is chronically underused; newspapers could blow it open to become one of their saving graces. Of course, their content (and their contributors) is another matter entirely.

If you and your peers needed $25 billion from the government because your misguided business is going belly up, how would you travel from Detroit to Washington? By private jet of course. Separately. After all, you’re too powerful to share. One congressman asked if they couldn’t have downgraded to first class?

Tom Peters rants about it best, but I think a massive PR opportunity has been missed. Imagine one of them had driven the 520 miles across the US with a small team and a camcorder explaining via short films and blog posts the reasons behind the begging bowl. They could’ve done it in a hybrid or some semi-solar powered prototype as a metaphor for the future of Detroit. He could’ve spoken openly in diners along the way with ordinary folks in Fords. That would’ve given him an opportunity to explain his thinking behind ethanol use rather than alternative energy, union pressures, pension commitments, federal restrictions, global forces, (not) going green… the whole nine yards.

They could’ve gone all web 2.0 about it: Gmapping the route and twittering as they went. The blogosphere would’ve exploded with the news and traditional TV would’ve followed – no press releases, just unadulterated, raw PR. More than a sliver of humble pie would’ve been needed and it would’ve been called for the obvious PR stunt it was, but a single point in the plus column would be better than the abundance of own goals this reckless trio are scoring.
[GM have since tried to block corporate jet tracking by the US Federal Aviation Administration.]

When Congress asked if they’d work for $1 a year, Chrysler’s Nardelli agreed (although he took home $210 million for being fired from Home Depo!). “I don’t have a position on that today,” said GM’s Wagoner (2007 earnings: $15.7 million). Ford’s Mulally (2007 earnings: $21.7m) said, “I think I’m okay where I am.” You almost want John Wayne’s ghost to walk over in a cowboy outfit and horsewhip him.

Irresponsible, selfish, unethical egomaniacs.

Stuff ‘em – corporate America needs to realise capitalism means being accountable for one’s own destiny. Mulally et al will believe themselves even more infallible. Yes, the fallout will be enormous and terrible but (semi) nationalising every conglomerate simply isn’t viable. What’s next, Hollywood? The NFL? The market must level itself to a greater extent or it ceases to be a free market.

Bail ‘em – if these three go bust the financial tsunami will be felt for decades (did anyone say depression?). Their supply chain is enormous and the ramifications for the world are literally immeasurable. They are simply too big and too important to fail simultaneously. A nuclear disaster may well have less impact on the West than this fiscal Armageddon.

It’s the very definition of an impossible situation.

UPDATE: excellent piece here by Sir Evelyn de Rothschild

Messrs Ross and Brand have given BBC executives many a sleepless night of late (and too many P45s) but my vote for the beeb’s employee of the month goes to their business editor, Robert Preston.

Mr Preston’s opinion has been called on more in recent weeks than George W. was asked about the two presidential candidates. The indomitable Preston is carted out on an almost daily basis with the BBC news’ 1, 6 and 9 o’clock shows loving his analysis every bit as much as Radio 2 and 4 does.

Robert used to write for Management Today and they recently wrote “Robert, an ex-MT columnist, has friends in very high places and is regarded as a safe pair of hands into which to let slip unpalatable news.” Evidently so, considering his double scooping of Northern Rock last year and the more recent Lloyds TSB/HBoS emergency merger.

The guy is good. Very good. His blog was a compelling read long before the words crunch and credit became synonymous with one another. And heaven forefend I disagree with his superior economics, but could somebody please coach him with regard to his diction. Surely the beeb’s producers are hearing the same dull tone, full of awkwardly slow sentences, pregnant pauses and more ‘Ums’ than a 14-year-old would use lying to his teacher?

The guy’s got a wonderful mind, why not help him express it a little better?