BlogOn 2005 Blog

Guidewire Group Social Media Research Panel

Wed, 26 Oct 2005 15:49:00 -0800

Guidewire Group is committed to fostering the understanding and use of Social Media. That's why we're forming the Guidewire Group Social Media Research Panel, a large group of professionals interested in Social Media who Guidewire Group will occassionally poll about their Social Media interests, practices and experiences. From time to time, we'll also feature members of the Research Panel in our research products or as speakers or panelists in our events.

With the assistance of many of the BlogOn 2005 Social Media Summit partners and sponsors, we've assemble a group of tools and services to help professionals learn more about Social Media and connect with each other. We're making these tools and services available at no cost, not just to attendees of our BlogOn events, but to anyone interested in learning more about Social Media.

BlogOn Connect: Created by Leverage Software, this exclusive online networking tool will help you connect with other professionals interested in Social Media.

BlogOn Network: The exclusive BlogOn Network group on LinkedIn will help you locate other executives, entrepreneurs, investors and journalists who are using blogs, social networks, syndication and podcasts to create real business value.

BlogOn Webcasts: Members of the Guidewire Group Social Media Research Panel receive complimentary access to Webcasts of the entire BlogOn 2005 Social Media Summit, including keynote talks, panel discussions, product demonstrations and all. You'll also receive access to premier Guidewire Group Social Media podcasts as they become available.

Pre-Release Research Summaries: Get early access to top-line results of Guidewire Group's research products on Social Media, like the recent Market Cycle Study on Blogging in the Enterprise.

As a member of Guidewire Group's Social Media Research panel, you'll also receive exclusive offers on Social Media tools and services from BlogOn sponsors, partners and innovators, as well as preferred customer pricing and invitations for upcoming Guidewire Group events and research products.

In return for access to these tools and benefits, and others we plan to add over time, we ask two simple things of you:

Complete the Social Media Research Panel Registration Form to signify your willingness to participate on Guidewire Group's Social Media Research Panel by answering survey questions from time to time (not more than once/month) about your use and plans for Social Media.

Respect the other members of the Research Panel by not abusing the community tools to send un-requested messages.

So long as you abide by these conditions and complete the surveys, you'll continue to receive all the benefits named above. And if at any time you want to opt-out of Guidewire Group's Social Media Research Panel, simply send us an email and we'll remove you from the list. And we'll never share your contact details with anyone without your express permission. It's that simple.

To get started, just complete the Social Media Research Panel Registration Form.

Within a few days after completing the registration form, you'll receive email invitations to BlogOn Connect and the BlogOn Network as well as instructions for accessing the BlogOn Webcasts. Shortly thereafter, we'll start sending you periodic emails with additional information and opportunities.

The dust settles

Thu, 20 Oct 2005 16:10:34 -0800

Well, it's a couple of days now since we left the Copacabana, and it's given me a chance to recover and reflect on how the conference went.

Feedback from audience, speakers and exhibitors alike was uniformly positive during the conference. People enjoyed the schedule that we put together, and it was great to hear them say so. If there was criticism, it was that the wifi (and also the webcast) was really flakey, particularly on the first day. We had two T1 lines out of the Copa, but it turned out that wasn't enough bandwidth - particularly when people are VPN-ing out and eating up capacity. I really don't know how we could have dealt with that beyond the polite requests we made, as it was really frustrating for those trying to use IRC or upload photos.

From a personal point of view, I had a great time, and really enjoyed playing host to such an interesting, smart group of people. Highlights for me included David Weinberger's What Blogs Are Not, and the Podcasting: Beyond Radio session, moderated by Cameron Reilly whose Aussie sense of humour certainly perked up the day. You'll be able to see the sessions in due course, as the video from the webcasts has been recorded and we'll be posting it as soon as possible.

I must say a huge thank you to everyone who contributed to making the event go so well, all the sponsors, innovators and speakers, as well as the Guidewire Group guys and gals who worked so hard to pull the whole thing together. And, of course, thanks to everyone who came on the day - without an audience, an event is just a wee bit pointless.

Keep an eye out for news of the next Guidewire Group event. If you missed BlogOn 2005, you'll really want to make sure you catch the next conference!

Guidewire's Executive Research Summary on Corporate Blogging Adoption

Wed, 19 Oct 2005 11:47:55 -0800

You can download a pdf of the executive summary here: Download file.

And please...if you have thoughts or questions, leave us comments.

BlogOn day two

Tue, 18 Oct 2005 07:19:34 -0800

I got so busy yesterday I didn't get to blog much, but have a moment now to get a post up.

We've just heard from David Weinberger, who talked about What Blogs are Not. Now, in true blogger style I have to disclose that I have been a big fan of David for a long time - he was one of the bloggers that got me blogging in the first place, over three years ago. But David gives a killer keynote. He highlighted the absolutely terrible blog put up by Juicy Fruit, and went through a few misconceptions that people have about bloggers, including the nasty and pernicious idea that blogging about your cat is somehow a lesser activity (I have a bugbear about people who judge blogs by the value they perceive it to have for a mass media-trained audience, rather than people's friends, family, or indeed just themselves).

Now we have the Can Advertising Be Social, panel, talking about the impacts of social media on advertising, and later another of my favourite speakers, Dick Hardt.

BlogOn2005

Buzznet party!

Mon, 17 Oct 2005 11:36:26 -0800

Buzznet and TonyPierce.com are sponsoring an after-hours party tonight, from 9pm to 2am:

Lolita's
266 Broome Street
New York 10002
(212) 966 7223

You may also find helpful a map, and the party invitation.

BlogOn 2005 Opening Remarks

Mon, 17 Oct 2005 09:22:51 -0800

A year ago, we identified social media as blogs, syndication, social networking, podcasting and other tools that were coming together to give individuals voice and choice in the market. We held our first BlogOn event in June of last year in a lecture auditorium at UC Berkeley. Today, here we are in a legendary nightclub, the Copacabana.

What that says about how far social media has come in the past 16 months, I’m not sure.

Sixteen months ago, as today, new blogs are coming on line at a rate that exceeds the adoption of any other media in history. Today, though, the drivers of that adoption aren’t twenty-somethings chronicling their daily lives or individuals giving voice to their political concerns. Today, the drivers of social media adoption are businesses who are increasingly incorporating blogs into their communications and marketing strategies.

This morning, you will receive a copy of Blogging in the Enterprise, a first-ever study of the adoption of blogging by communications and marketing professionals.

The findings are most interesting:

• Businesses of all sizes across, and in a wide range of industries a wide array of industries are adopting blogging technologies and practices.

• Almost 90% of those surveyed said they are or plan to use blogging in their communications efforts.

• We suspected as much when we outlined the survey, but we were most surprised to see that the adoption of business blogging has – in the last 3 months – taken a major uptick.

Whether this recent activity is an anomaly or a projectable pattern is really what BlogOn 2005 is all about.

We know that adoption of social media technologies is driven by the very specific desire to improve communication and company image – both inside and beyond the walls of the corporation.

We also know that some barriers stand in the way.

You are smart people; you want to see clear benefit before investing in new strategies. And as with any new strategy, there are associated risks – risks you want to mitigate, if not eliminate all together.

At BlogOn 2005, we’ll explore together the risks, the benefits, the best practices that can help you craft and advance your social media communications strategy.

Ours is not an academic exercise – this conference doesn’t theorize about possibilities and outcomes. Instead, we have brought together a most excellent group of communications and marketing professionals – your peers – who, as early adopters of social media, will share their experience so that you can learn from and build upon it.

And I sincerely hope that you’ll be a full-on participant in the discussion, too, bringing your expertise, your questions and concerns to the conversation which is BlogOn 2005.

One thing we’re not going to spend a great deal of time talking about, though, is technology. Indeed, the research said that technology is not a major hurdle in the adoption of blogging for business communications.

I suspect that is because “social” in social media technologies compelled developers to build tools and services that are extremely accessible, adoptable, and easy to buy.

At BlogOn 2005, twenty Social Media Innovators are each a case in point. I encourage you to spend time getting to know these companies – they are the rising stars in the social media technology marketplace.

And I also encourage you to get to know Yahoo!, Six Apart, iUpload, Leverage Software, and Porter Novelli – the lead event partners and sponsors without whose support we could not have created this conference. Get to knows these folks because I know they can help you build your social media strategies most successfully.

The first morning

Mon, 17 Oct 2005 08:29:30 -0800

BlogOn is going really well so far.

Seth Godin spoke about his new project, Squidoo, which is a site that allows people to aggregate all their various URLs and information about themselves or what they're interested in and which acts then as a jumping off point for visitors.

The first panel, Listening To the Blogosphere moderated by Elizabeth Albrycht with Mary Hodder, Jackie Huba and Randall McAdory, was great - good discussion about how companies can listen to what's being said about them online, what tools they can use, what is important to think about when monitoring blogs.

Right now, we have the first product showcase, Cymfony, who are displaying their analytical tools for tracking topics and discussions online.

From a personal point of view, I'm really enjoying the conference. We've a full house and I am really looking forward to mingling and chatting to people at the break. Mind you, I didn't get much breakfast so I'm starving!

BlogOn Innovator Cymfony launch Orchestra

Mon, 17 Oct 2005 07:37:56 -0800

Cymfony's Orchestra is a dashboard application that monitors the mainstream media, blogs, usenet groups and online forums. Cymfony will be unveiling Orchestra today at 11.10 with a product showcase from the stage.

Welcome to BlogOn 2005 Social Media Summit!

Mon, 17 Oct 2005 05:59:28 -0800

Welcome to the Copacabana!

Breakfast is currently being served on the mezzanine of the Copa Ballroom, and we're all set up ready to rock and roll... or should that be bossa nova?

We have to great speakers lined up for today and tomorrow and we hope that you will enjoy the show! If you can't be here, then you can take part in BlogOn 2005 using our community tools - including a webcast, podcasts and an exclusive BlogOn social network.

Attensa launch new version for Outlook

Wed, 12 Oct 2005 11:55:16 -0800

BlogOn Innovators Attensa have launched Attensa for Outlook, a browser toolbar for both Internet Explorer and Firefox which allows you to easily subscribe to RSS feeds which you can then view in MS Outlook. Looks very cool - wish I had Outlook so that I could test it!

BlogOn2005, Attensa, RSS

Pre-Blog On meet up Sunday 16 Oct

Wed, 12 Oct 2005 08:21:24 -0800

Jeff Nolan and David Hornik are organising a pre-Blog On meet-up on Sunday 16th October at the Copacabana (note: the venue might change so check the wiki). If you'd like to go, put your name on the wiki!

BlogOn2005, Jeff Nolan, David Hornik, Copacabana

A week for acquisitions

Fri, 07 Oct 2005 11:30:33 -0800

Verisign acquire Weblogs.com.
AOL acquire Weblogs Inc.

It's all kicking off...

NewsGator acquires NetNewsWire

Thu, 06 Oct 2005 12:11:01 -0800

In another bit of BlogOn 2005 Innovator news, NewsGator Technologies Inc. have acquired Ranchero Software's NewNewsWire, the leading Mac OS X RSS aggregator. From NewsGator:

The NewsGator Online platform provides a highly integrated and synchronized reading/viewing experience across multiple devices, including the web, mobile phones, televisions, and e-mail clients such as Microsoft Outlook. The recent FeedDemon acquisition extended this to the Windows desktop, and now with NetNewsWire, the premier RSS reader for Mac OS X, the platform extends to the Mac desktop as well.

"Many of our online customers who are Mac users have asked if we had plans to extend our product platform to the Mac desktop," said Greg Reinacker, founder and CTO of NewsGator. "NetNewsWire is the dominant RSS application for the Mac OS, and was an obvious choice for us. We’re very excited to integrate our advanced synchronization and other capabilities into the product and roll it out to our combined customer base."

"After hearing so many NetNewsWire users ask for synchronization – not just between copies of NetNewsWire, but with their PDAs, with newsreaders on Windows, with a browser-based service – we thought about how to make this happen, and found that NewsGator had the technology already in place," said Brent Simmons, co-founder and partner of Ranchero Software. "But they didn’t have a Mac client! So it was a perfect fit, and we couldn’t be more excited."

NetNewsWire, NewsGator, BlogOn2005

Flock takes the wraps off its browser

Thu, 06 Oct 2005 11:51:34 -0800

BlogOn 2005 Innovator, Flock, is soon to take the wrappings off its brand new browser, according to Business Week.

The Flock browser, which is expected to be released to the public in test form in about two weeks, does everything a regular browser does, but with several important additions.

For one, it makes blogging a snap by eliminating the need to do arcane coding in order to post, change fonts or add photos. Right click the mouse on a Web page, and a blogging wizard comes up that automatically creates links, citations, and quotes that are ready to insert into a blog. A horizontal bar on the browser also can load photos from the photo-sharing site Flickr, so they can be simply dragged and dropped into the blog post.

If you're interested in Flock, you can see them at BlogOn 2005, or you can sign up on their website for the sneak preview when it's made public.

The Blog Herald's guide to BlogAds advertising

Tue, 04 Oct 2005 09:06:41 -0800

This detailed guide to BlogAds from The Blog Herald give a good overview of advertising on blogs for both bloggers and advertisers.