Today, Adobe did a very smart thing

They bought Omniture, the leading Web analytics solution.

I’ve worked with the guys in Orem, where Omniture is headquartered, a good bit over years: great bunch, with a really smart and switched on leader in Josh, impeccable business ethics and an absolutley kick ass product.  Was always a joy to work with them, and I love the way Josh runs his business.  The fact that their solution was head and shoulders above the competition didn’t hurt either, although the Google product beats them on price (it’s free).

I happened to be there when Omniture announced they were in the black a few years ago, when employees came in to find thousands and thousands of black balloons covering every inch of the office, four  foot deep. It was quite the trip: felt like a little slice of Silicon Valley, in deepest Utah.

Their dedication to their customers and their product has always stood out to me, and they’ve innovated throughout the years and done more for the  analytics arena (and I would argue as a result, strategy) than anyone I can think of. Stoked for the guys out there, stoked for Omniture, and super excited for the possibilities that the Adobe aquisition will bring.  Measurement is the holy grail: understand what your users are doing, and you can give them more of what they want, when they want it.  Being in a position to deliver both the content experience  (ads, flash, video etc) AND detailed info on user behavior within those experiences gives Adobe a real edge.

Congrats guys. Both of you.

Me Chatting with Kimberly Maul of PR Week

Good chat with Kimberly Maul of PR Week about consumers in the social space, the Facebook/Friendfeed business and some work we did for Ford recently.

Friending everyone you meet – what’s up with that?

Not so long ago, social networks were pretty straightforward:  MySpace & Facebook were for friends, Linkedin for business contacts, and a bunch of others for everything in between.  If you met somebody (online or off) that you got on with you connected with them on one of the first two, if you met somebody you were doing business with and liked (or wanted to) you connected with them on the latter.  They were, in one way or another, qualified contacts.  Seems like in the last year or so particularly, the boundries between them all have gotten blurred.  I’ve had facebook ‘friend’ requests from people whose name I don’t know, or whose face I don’t recognise.  Met them once, was on a conference call or in a meeting… exchanged cards at a conference.

Twitter self-polices in a way, in that if you’re following somebody who drives you crazy, you’ll quickly unfollow or ignore them.  Part of the beauty of Twitter is that it’s a great way to connect with folks you didn’t know previously. That’ll be the subject of a different post though…

My point is that connections run the risk of losing value.  If you connect with everyone you meet on linkedin, how valuable is that connection to you or your network?  If you can’t vouch for that person personally, is the fact that you’re linked of any worth?

Personally I try to only connect only with people I consider to be friends, or folks who I like  or liked working with and respect.  There’s a good deal of crossover between Facebook and Linkedin for me within those two groups (a different issue), but the same rules apply.

What do Web services like Facebook & Twitter owe their users?

There’s been lots of noise recently around Web services and their relationships with their users. Facebook users were up in arms about the recent privacy policy changes (since rescinded), there’s increasing noise about the customer service (or lack thereof) from Twitter. Facebook’s redesign has caused an extraordinary backlash: you’d think some of these folks had been personally assaulted, such is their anger. Gmail  goes down for 15 minutes, and it’s like the world has ended.

Gmail, like the others above, is free for non-enterprise users.

That’s the key point when looking at these complaints: these services are all free.  So, just as users of Google’s free analytics product have much less right to complain than those of the higher end and more fully featured (but paid) Omniture Site Catalyst, the real question is whether  it’s reasonable to expect a certain level of service or % of uptime when you’re not paying for a product?

If you’re getting something for free you have to take it as it comes to some extent, but in truth it’s more complex than that.  Long term each of these services will look to generate revenue from their users in some capacity (some like Gmail already are); whether through subscriptions, advertising, sponsorship or some other stream.  To succeed, they need a happy and active user base. Ignoring their users’ complaints at this stage could damage them long term: the Web is littered with the carcasses of services that ignored their users.

You could reasonably argue that Twitter users have no right to complain about not getting a level of service they are not contractually entitled to, but in order for it  to succeed, they need to keep users happy so they don’t go elsewhere. The road to that success starts with listening to their users’  complaints. The customer is always right, even when it comes to free services.

Interesting thoughts on this over at the Social Media Club. It’s their question of the week. Where do you stand?  Are folks being reasonable in complaining, or does the fact they’re not paying for the service mean they have to accept whatever level of service they receive?

Brilliant Duane Reade Valentine’s Day Promotion

Because nothing says ‘love’ like ‘I bought some shampoo’, right?

http://www.duanereade.com/ff09/

SEM Conquesting – Big Deal or Not?

There was some talk yesterday on Twitter about conquesting.  One of @BryanPerson’s competitors is buying his company’s keywords (trademarked company name) on Google.

http://twitter.com/BryanPerson/status/1116881898

Lots of folks chimed in, including @CommunispaceCEO whose company (Communispace, obv) faced similar issues in the past:

http://pr.typepad.com/pr_communications/2008/03/mzinga-google-a.html

Consensus was that it was a little shady at best (using trademarks is against Google’s rules), but is it really such a big deal?  If your potential customer knows enough about you to search for your name, they’re going to realize they’re in the wrong place after clicking on ’site a’ and being taken to ’site b’. If they don’t, you have bigger problems than somebody using your name in a google ad.  If they search for a competitor name and their ad has your company’s name in the copy…. well now they know who you are

If it’s not ok to use competitor company names in paid search ads, does that mean it’s also not ok to talk about them on blogs.  How about Twitter?  Is it ok to compare product offerings on your site?  Can Pepsi mention Coke on TV? Really feels like a non-issue to me.

Misleading people or telling lies is a completely different matter, of course.

CNN, Stephen Fry, Britney… Twitter has landed (in case you hadn’t noticed)

Twitter is everywhere nowadays.  CNN anchors advertise their twitter accounts live on air and interact with their viewers, Stephen Fry is twittering his way around Africa, and even lil old Britney has got in on the act. It has well and truly landed.  Pretty amazing that in just two years it’s gone from an oddity that most people didn’t really get, to almost an institution.

I’ll write more about what people are doing with Twitter over coming weeks.  In the meantime, here’s a snapshow of following/followers for each of the above:

ricksanchezcnn:  following 17910  followers 27323

stephenfry: following 10096 followers 10140

therealbritney: following 1561 followers 5374

What does the above tell you?  That Stephen Fry really gets it.  He should be CTO of the world, obviously.  And that Britney needs to show her fans some love.  And that loads of people watch CNN.