Web 2.0 Expo: Conversations on Technology Business Models & Beyond

Web 2.0 Expo, co-produced by O'Reilly Media, Inc. and UBM TechWeb, is in full force this week in San Francisco: March 28-31, 2011.

The event showcases the latest Web 2.0 business models, development paradigms, products, and design strategies for the builders of the next-generation Web. They also do a similar event in New York every year, where they feature influential keynotes and speakers, detailed workshops, a Startup Showcase, and an Expo show floor with booths.

To give you a taste of some of the sessions and workshops, take a look at their entire schedule or a glimpse below:

Nimble Outlines Vision For Social CRM

On the heals of their launch at DEMO, Nimble is getting some buzz on their new Social CRM service, the basic product of which is free. While there is a free version, Nimble's goal is to serve the SMB and Enterprise markets, both of which suffer from information overload, disparate systems that don't talk to each other and outdated contact management systems which are overpriced and act as silos.

Nimble Contacts unifies communications streams such as email, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Google Calendar in a Web-based dashboard for sales and customer service people. InformationWeek's David F. Carr recently did an interview with CEO Jon Ferrara and I chose two questions to republish below. The interview in its entirety can be found here and it's definitely worth a read.

Carr: Where does this product fit in the market for enterprise social media?

Ferrara: It's hard to manage your communication by going to all the tabs in your browser. If I see an interesting tweet from someone, I need to be able to jump to the contact record and see who that person is. The idea of Nimble is give people the ability to listen and engage. Today, people use things like [Salesforce.com's] Chatter and Yammer to build internal collaboration.

Carr: What other sorts of applications do you want to integrate with?

Ferrara: We don't want to be all things to all people. I'd rather be the WordPress of CRM than the Microsoft Office of CRM. So we're going to invite in third-party developers and enable them to share and sell their extensions in our app store.

In my mind, in the perfect world, we would love to embrace the existing platforms people have invested in. That's why Gmail and your Google Calendar activities are integrated into Nimble. And you can see that if I've read a message here in Nimble, it's marked read in Gmail.

Disclosure: I helped the team with their launch and was a consultant to the company.

Nimble's Jon Ferrara Shows What Social CRM SHOULD Be

Nimble's CEO Jon Ferrara on the DEMO stage in Palm Desert this week. He shows Nimble's new Social CRM application in the video below.

Note: I consult to the company.

New Social CRM Platform Nimble Transforms the Way People Manage Relationships

Nimble Contact, the Social CRM platform that combines relationship management and social engagement into an easy-to-use and integrated solution, unveiled its public beta at the DEMO Spring 2011 Conference today.

Nimble Contact integrates LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Google, email contacts and conversations into one seamless, intuitive environment, empowering small businesses in today’s socially connected world to attract and retain the right customers.

Combining the “4 Cs” -- contacts, calendar, communications and collaboration -- professionals can now more easily and efficiently manage the way they see, hear and connect with their company's most important asset: their business contacts, all under one roof.

Nimble Contact is the next evolution in relationship management – a social relationship manager that makes it fun and easy to nurture personal and business relationships.

Below: A screen grab of the Activities Record

Nimble Contact’s core benefit lies in its ability to unify email, calendar activities and social channels, and automatically link all three to business contacts. This allows businesses to easily see all of the communications they and their teams have had with their contacts, no matter where those conversations take place, and without having to jump from window to window, tab to tab, network to network, or application to application. 

Below is a Social Stream View:

KEY FEATURES:

One Unified Solution – Nimble connects contacts to calendars, communications, tasks and social conversations -- all in one easy-to-use interface.

Social Listening – Nimble lets companies monitor the most popular social networks – LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook – from one screen.

Social Engagement – Nimble's unified inbox helps companies respond to conversations and engage prospects more quickly via email or social media networks.

Works with Existing Tools - Nimble synchronizes with Google Apps, including email and calendars, so users can continue to use their familiar tools.

Easy to Use – Unlike more traditional CRM systems, Nimble’s sleek interface reveals the information companies need to see and hides the rest.

Web-Based & Secure – As a web-based solution, Nimble requires no set-up or maintenance, making it far easier to get up and running. Nimble Contact’s encrypted security and redundant servers are built to keep information safe.

Even before being out of the 'public gate,' Nimble was recently named to “The CRM Watchlist 2011” by Social CRM expert and best-selling author, Paul Greenberg. Published by ZDNet, Nimble was one of only seven companies selected for the “Social Mainstream” category from a field of nearly 130 companies.

The standalone product, Nimble Contact, is free and available online at www.nimble.com. More functionality to be added for businesses as they start to grow in the coming months.

Note: I'm a consultant to Nimble.

Launch.Forum Hopes to Transform Online Forums

Launch.Forum is a new software currently in private beta that was on the LAUNCH11 floor in San Francisco this past week. Brought to you by Viral Age, their new platform will be a quick and easy way to build a forum on the fly, which will include other key components that companies, associations and non-profits alike can tap into, such as discussion threads, a blog and integration of social media discussions. You can sign up here to be alerted when the site goes live. In the video below, Ilia Muriente and Robert Kennedy tell us a bit more about their platform in a demo on the show floor.

Business MUSTS: Social Relevancy, Online Reputation Management and Measurement

Social Relevancy, Online Reputation Management and Measurement are musts for all companies and frankly for all individuals who run or are involved in business they want to move to the next level.

To prove it, companies are getting funded in 'social relevancy' sectors and startups like PeerIndex and Klout are doing their best to prove to the world that relevancy matters.

Look at Dell as an example. They're focusing more attention on Twitter because they realize that people only buy a PC/laptop once every year or once every two years, so they need a social 'tool' to keep their fans engaged all the time.

In doing so, it's important to not just identify but consistently use that 'organizational voice.' Zappos is a great example of a company who consistently brings that corporate culture into every aspect of their work and play. They integrate play into their work in a way that works.

Online Reputation Management: people will check out your reputation online before they will consider doing a deal with you or working with you. Here are some great examples worth reading about.

• Pepsi: bad ad goes nuts and then the negative tweets started going nuts, but they responded right away and said, yeah, you're right, this isn't appropriate, we agree and we’ll take it down right away.
• FTD.com responded badly to comments about flowers not being delivering on Mother’s Day and did so btw, through a traditional press release that didn't really address or respond to people's concerns, and in the process only made it worse. Perception is reality my friends. Know when the 'game is on.'
• Taco Bell – Taco Hell: Rodent Video Signals New Era in PR Crises.  Again, they poorly responded through a traditional press release. It doesn't mean they can't respond that way, it means that it can't be the only way they respond and the only outlet. It's critical that your offenders and/or customers/fans in each case, feel understood and heard.
• Sears Killed My Dog: see story about how Sears backed up & killed a family dog and how it was 'eventually' handled.
• United Broke My Guitar: the music around this got 9+ million reviews. (Harvard case study says that it cost United $180 million lost in shareholder value)

Some social measurement tools to monitor your online reputation include:

• SocialMention.com – run social mention on you and your company
• Addictomatic.com
• Klout.com
• Google Alerts
• Radian6 – paid subscription service 
• SM2 – paid subscription services
• Viral Heat – paid subscription service
• Pissedconsumer.com
• Angies List
• Rate my doctor
• LawyerRatingz
• Rate my teacher
• Speaker Rating

If you're not running 'listening campaigns' on your name, your company name, product names and your competitor company and product names, how can you know what you don't know and respond effectively?

By listening and engaging, you can more effectively respond when you see or hear something negative on you or your competition.   

Measurement is also key when you run listening and engagement campaigns. A key question is this: what is the sentiment ratio? Once you identify what it is, keep measuring it. Monitor, measure, change strategy if needed (and perhaps even messaging) and then monitor and measure again.

It's an ongoing process. If you don't have this in place, you are not in the game. Don't be driven by someone else already in the game, please lead. Don't you want to be more than just a step ahead of your competition?

Photo credit: Erasseo.

TWTRCON San Francisco: Biz Strategies in Real-Time

I've been meaning to attend TWTRCON since its first one now over a year ago, so was thrilled to discover I'd be in San Francisco when their second one hit the west coast last week.

TWTRCON is entirely focused on the business use of the real-time web with social media tools like Twitter a core part of the conversation.  

They highlight case studies from leading brands, workshops led by social media practitioners and mini tutorials about real-time tools. They also collect and publish social media business case studies, statistics and videos on their site.

What I loved most about their event is how well it combined great networking and high quality speakers and sessions with "fun." They had beach balls on the tables and introduced a game at the start of the day as a way to meet others and tweet out a little love about the person you just met.  

Some of my favorite people were on stage, in the audience and sponsors with tables.

As a non-morning person, I was shocked that I managed to make it there for Laura Fitton's (aka @pistachio) early morning keynote which kicked off the day.  

Her message focused around relevance - in other words, don't just go for numbers, go for engagement. And after you kick that into gear and are part of the conversation, remember to use the right analytics tools: links, click throughs, conversations AND context. All are important. 

Kara Swisher interviewed Adam Bain on revenue models, digging for more data on how Twitter will make money. It's clearer that revenue is coming - what's the ole saying? Build an audience first and the money will follow and it's not as if they can't tout numbers - real numbers. 

Adam says they plan to focus on the product plan in the next year and product growth will be key over revenue, at least in the next twelve months.

On future revenue models, he reminds the audience that with traditional display advertising, .5% engagement is considered a win and with Twitter, they're seeing single and double digit percentages in engagement.

Tons of major brands are already using Twitter and setting up campaigns to increase engagement and get customers on board - it's an organic movement that is only growing, not shrinking. Small businesses are seeing a tremendous benefit as well. 

Then, Google's Avinash Kaushik talked analytics. Full of energy and passion, he zipped from left to right across the stage emphasizing all of his key points - with humor.....a lot of humor.

He talked about the whole notion of HITS and tracking hits alone, which he says stands for: (HITS = How Idiots Track Success). He referred to it as a glorious datapuke. 

He reminded the audience not to get caught up in straight hits or simple analytics around positive, negative and neutral. Sentiment analysis is key - focusing on people's emotions and how they're feeling and thinking when they retweet or make a comment. It's important to understand the behavior behind tweets purchases and data links, he says. 

Stefanie Michaels (aka @adventuregirl) talked about the value of Twitter to create change and make a positive impact on the world. 

"In social media, your reward is YOUR reward," she says. In other words, focus on what you care about and talk about that on Twitter and elsewhere on the web.

It can be as simple as helping ten kids out and having an impact on two of their lives in a way that can not only be life changing for them but for you in the journey you take along the way.

They had an interesting small business panel which included Nic Adler from The Roxy Theatre, Andrew Israel from AspenSpin, Akash Kapoor from Curry Up Now, and musician Zoe Keating.

Below, HootSuite's Ryan Holmes, Maksim Ovsyannikov from Zendesk, Sprinklr's Ragy Thomas, and Gigya's David Yovanno talked about real-time strategies and tools now and what's next.

Ford's Scott Monty showed up in a bow-tie and raised the bar for the local geeks who dressed in t-shirts, jeans and sneakers. He shared a few case studies and talked about some of the lessons he has learned through implementing social media campaigns over the last few years.

At the end of the day, people still care about the same things they have always cared about, he says. "People don't change, they want you to think and feel and be just like them." Globally, trust is down year after year and less than 40% of people trust ads. "Who people trust are third party experts and people like themselves," he says.

Transparency and authenticity are key when you're dealing with human emotions and rather than use robotic language that won't have an impact on people's emotions, "we're training people to talk like humans again."  He also emphasized the importance of relevance.

Below are a few random shots.....I'd love to see them turn this into a two day event in the future. Kudos to Tonia Ries and her team for an incredibly well-executed event.

Above: Tonia Ries, Fusicology's Zsa-Zsa Rensch and James Bowyer

Musician Zoe Keating

 

Kara Swisher

Thomson Reuters' Alastair Goldfisher, Marie Domingo, Harry McCracken, Renee Blodgett

Above - Marylene Delbourg-Delphis and Rachel Polish (taken by Harry McCracken)

HootSuite had a mascot :-) The Owl was dancing around all day! (and then some)

Laura and friends sign books - Twitter for Dummies. Twitter for who?? :-)

And, unlike a lot of conferences, the sponsors actually made sense and were very relevant for the 'conversation.' You didn't feel pitched and the companies that showed up all had a solution for putting together real-time strategies and solutions in small businesses and corporations.

The "relevant" companies included folks like CoTweet, HootSuite, Objective Marketer, ThreadMarketing, tap 11, Foursquare, Sprinklr, ZenDesk, TweetReach, Fliptop and others.

DataHug on Social CRM

DataHug's Connor Murphy (right) tells me about their service over drinks one night in Dublin last week.

DataHug, which just won an IntertradeIreland award earlier this month in Dublin, has developed technology that indexes corporate email systems and generates insight about the everyday connections between people. 

While there are several email filters and indexers, none of them really take the pain out of dealing with information overflow and making sense of it in a meaningful way. Enter the growing need for Social CRM that works.

Currently in beta, DataHug analyzes emails coming in and out of a company to build a rich and dynamic picture of ‘who knows who’ and ‘how well they know them’. DataHug sells their service online to businesses that rely on relationships to succeed and are currently trialling the technology with a number of customers. 

Defrag Explores Tools & Technologies around the Data Deluge

This year's Defrag is all about the "data deluge" and the technologies the industry is building to leverage that situation at the individual, group and organizational level.

Sitting at the intersection of BI, Social Media, Enterprise 2.0, Big Data and the Semantic Web, Defrag is a unique conference that combines a mixture of traditional panel discussions and speakers with an un-conference informal feel in the middle of the Colorado mountains (the venue is nestled off Interlocken in Broomfield, not far from Denver).

Keynote speakers for this year's conference include:

• Alex Wright (author of Glut)
• Vivek Wadwha (Duke, Harvard and UC-Berkeley)
• Esther Dyson
• Dion Hincliffe (Dachis Group)
• Jeff Ma (inspiration for the movie, "21")
• David Weinberger (The Cluetrain Manifesto)
• Paul Kedrosky
• Jeff Jonas (Chief Scientist, IBM)
• JP Rangaswami

To register, take advantage of this special 15% discount: click here and enter VIP1.

And Then There Was 2010 BlogWorldExpo: #bwe10

I’ve been going to BlogWorldExpo since it began. An event dedicated to all things blogging, online content and social media, it gathers bloggers who flock to SXSW in the Spring, mom and parenting bloggers who flock to BlogHer in August, and geek bloggers who flock to (or should I say are addicted to) social media and technology events every month.

The event, now at over 3,000 attendees, also attracts generalists, travel bloggers, marketing execs, blogging solution & tool vendors, and big brands trying to make an impact on the blogosphere on and offline.

A few highlights: I sampled saffron paella fresh off the Jenn-Air stage, met celebrity chef Manoushka Guerrier (Single Serving) of Food Network's Private Chefs of Beverly Hills, and sat next to interesting and engaging Erik Trinidad at a dinner who came up with a creative blog brand: Fancy Fast Food. His USP? He essentially takes fast food and makes it 'look' fabulous. Food had a bigger play this year at BlogWorld. Check out my summary post on We Blog the World, listing some of the topics and speakers.

One booth souped up dark chocolate espresso and gourmet coffee and Macallan Single Malt Whiskey was giving away samples, who btw, had two hired guns manning the booth, one of whom was not a whiskey drinker and a second who drank another brand. 

Held in the Las Vegas Mandalay Bay, several tracks take place simultaneously down 3 long hallways, while activity buzzes in the exhibit hall nearby. Adjoining the exhibit hall is what they refer to as a New Media Lounge, where podcasts and video interviews took place and bloggers connected for live posting, photo uploads and managing email overflow.

In from around the world were bloggers from Japan, Australia, New Zealand (Darren Rowse from ProBlogger), Scotland (Ewan Spence), Germany (Nicole Simon), Ireland (Irish Polyglot), Poland, Argentina and hundreds of others. Babette Pepaj from Bakespace co-organized the food track which also drew lifestyle and travel bloggers, including travel blogger Gary Arndt who I rarely get to see but thanks to this annual blogging event, we were able to catch up. Below, Dave Peck with the Meshin folks at the Jason Falls meet-up.

I ran into Technorati’s CEO Richard Jalichandra and a bunch of blogger pals from LA who cover everything from relationships, sex, boomers, aging and fitness to politics, entertainment, music and travel. TWIT’s Leo Laporte was conducting interviews as was Marsha Collier on the show floor for a few hours each day. Below, Renee Blodgett, Leo Laporte and Barbara Rozgonyi.

Panel discussions were broad, ranging from photography tips, SEO for blogs, digital crisis communications, money trail, podcasts, social media policies, Internet Radio, blogging platforms and travel videos to non-profits, politics, education, parenting, mobile vlogging, Social CRM, travel pornand creating a blog network.

Barry Moltz spoke on how to utilize the speaking game to leverage your brand and blog, how to capitalize on it by using speaking to the blog revenue pie. He emphasizes three things everyone 'must have down' - what's your bio, what's your brand and what's your promise? Video of the session to follow tomorrow. Below Joseph Morin who did a bang-up job with Social Rewards all week and Steve Hall.

Countless official and unofficial parties were held every night, after all….it is Las Vegas, so it’s a great opportunity for sponsors to tap into the no rules policy or at least limited rules, where drinks can be served into the wee hours of the morning, people can drink on the streets and leave restaurants with a glass of wine in their hands, and people’s inhibitions are fluid and loose at best.

Below a little glitz and glam at the Techset opening party.

Party hopping is part of the blogging conference culture and not unlike SXSW, I got the sense each and every night, that attendees were desperately looking for the next bash after each one ended. Social Rewards held Luxor suite receptions and scavenger-hunt like exercises were an integral part of participating. Thanks Luxor & Joseph Morin.

You were given clues and links to scour through and questions to answer and ultimately you were given information albeit vague, about where the party was held. It had a fun, gaming kind of flavor to it, which was perfect for any Las Vegas venue and brands like the Las Vegas Luxor, Sony, Ford (kudos to Scott Monty -- @scottmonty -- who won an award this week), PopChips and others were able to tap into the subsequent buzz that flowed from the events each night.

Whoah, Gregory Feinstein has his hands full at the Mashable bash. So did everyone else btw.

Client CarWoo!, an inexpensive, private and efficient way to buy a new car online, threw a women’s blogger event, to celebrate their launch at Digital Dealer, a car event which started a few days earlier at the Mirage. Below Heather Meeker and Marsha Collier arrive from the massive black hummer limo.

The hummer limo picked up the girls at the Mandalay Bay for a little off-site food, champagne, wine, make-up from the team at FRESH and poker tips from Shore Slocum. Below, inside the limo, 25 or more of us were packed in with champagne bottles and glasses. Oh yeah and note the fabulous pair of red boots. Below, Renee Blodgett, Beth Kanter.

Below, the FRESH team 'refresh' attendees.

Below Pepsi's Social Media guru Bonin Bough at the Mashable party

The Bellagio’s Yellowtail Restaurant hosted a tasting for some of the food, wine and travel bloggers, so I couldn’t resist.

Award-winning chef Akira Back put together a myriad of dishes that included Jidori chicken with potato puree and garlic cream, Scottish Salmon with yuzu lemon, duck prosciutto with pickles and micro beets, seared Hokkaido Scallops with cherry tomatoes and mustard potato puree, Alaskan King Crab with rock shrimp, spicy-citrus aioli, grilled walu with shiitake mushrooms & pearl onions and braised kobe beef short ribs.

A more in-depth review of the tasting can be found here, including a handful of fabulous food photos I took on-site. Thanks Lightgroup -- @lightgroup and @bakespace. 

PopChips also drew in some of the foodies at a nearby after bash, where they promoted a Twitter quiz to get the word out about their brand.

Keynotes this year included Darren Rowse, Brian Clark, Jim Louderback, Susan Bratton and Dermot McCormack, Karen Hughes, Reid Wilson and Dick Glover. The last panel of the event was a cross between a talk-show format and a Q&A. Moderated by Rob Barnett, Adam Carolla, Penn Jillette from Penn & Teller, Mark Malkoff, Cali Lewis and Jeffrey Hayzlett discussed what works and doesn't with new media.

They were all bluntly entertaining about new media, old media, and where online is heading. Penn said of Twitter on-stage that it is one of the most intimate vehicles we have today to communicate, connect and engage.

He overtly compared it to the countless impersonal and often fake physical exchanges we have with people at cocktail parties and other events. Intimacy at its best he feels and goes on to explain how he uses Twitter.  He says that he tweets all of his own stuff and rarely retweets other people’s thoughts, one of the reasons he thinks he has a popular and widespread following (@pennjillette has over 1.6 million followers at last check). 

I would bet it also has a little to do with the fact that he is a national if not international entertainer celebrity, not to mention has a very sarcastic and in-your-face, bold personality. It’s so surprise that America eats him up, since yanks are typically drawn to the eclectic, the brash, the tough and the bold in my experience. Check out this video from the floor and this blog post that captures nearly all of the panel discussion in a three part video -- subsequent videos can be found in a separate blog post and on YouTube. 

Thanks for the encouragement & your conviction Andrea Metcalf - @andreametcalf. (Taken at the Palms).

Tech Karaoke closed the event on Saturday night at the Palms Hotel. It was held in a large threatre with cinema-like chairs perched on an angle and the stage was roughly 4.5 feet from the ground, giving those brave enough to sing in from of their blogging peers, plenty of space and height to really feel their 3-5 minutes of fame.

Chris Noble did a little Elvis, Amanda Coolong did a little PINK and the iSocket guys did a little exercise – impressive push-ups and all. Looking forward to next year. Kudos to Rick and his team!

Below, the tech karaoke audience get a 'little' excited and take in the energy from on-stage.

On the stage, participants play full out. For example, who knew that the iSocket guys were so talented (and so strong?)

Lewis Howes, Renee Blodgett and Larry Benet in the Southwest Airlines booth on the show floor.

There was definitely a little Las Vegas energy and color at the Mashable bash. And, Liquid didn't close until 5 am. (there's a reason shows are more interesting outside the Bay Area)

Girls will be girls.

Leaving the Klout party to go hang out with Jason for a bit.

We all danced on stage (well sort of) at the Mashable bash which was still roaring when I left at nearly 2 am.

Inside the Venetian Hotel along the strip.

Sugar Jones and Marla Schulman

@Zaneology wore these incredible nylons that were sure to make a statement and then some not to mention being incredibly appropriate for a blogging conference.

CarWoo's CEO Tommy McClung at the end of a very long night.

Kris Krug, Deb Shultz

 

@Dadarocks

Thanks for shooting the girls Calvin (@mayhemstudios) and for organizing Babette (@bakespace). Taken at the Bellagio on a gorgeous night.

More Mashable fun. Ben Parr was missed (@benparr).

Mashable's Brett Petersel and TechZulu's Efran Toscano

@drnatalie rocks!

Sugar Jones, Ask Dave (Taylor), Oliver Starr, Renee Blodgett, Roseann Higgins

Chris Noble (@cfnoble) graced us with Elvis. (really good Elvis - who knew he could belt out a tune like he can?)

More late night tech-karaoke at the Palms.

 

 

Go Sheila Dowd. It was indeed a lot of work but a helluva lot of fun too! :-)

Because Ken Yeung (@thekenyeung) shoots as much as I do and then some. And he's really good. Smile.

At the Techset bash, David Spark, Renee Blodgett @magicsaucemedia, Pat Jenkins of Uptake and Michael Tchong of @ubercool.

Digg's Emily Crume on left.

The iSocket guys:

  

The PopChips Event.