Of course, it’s easy to miss the mark.

Are you familiar with Reddit? The popular social news website offers a feature called Ask Me Anything (AMA), in which people of interest can open up a dialogue with Reddit users by directly answering questions. Generally, these questions range from the mundane to the daringly personal; the most popular AMAs feature celebrities answering off-the-wall questions and offering fascinating bits of information about past projects and experiences.

I’ve talked about comedian Louis C.K. before, who successfully pulled off an AMA while promoting his stand-up special, “Live at the Beacon Theater.” Following in C.K.’s footsteps, actor Woody Harrelson started his own AMA on Friday.  Using the account name “iamwoodyharrelson,” this is how he started the topic:

Hi Reddit, it’s Woody here. I’m in New York today doing interviews for my new film RAMPART, which opens in theaters on February 10th. I’ll be checking in from 3-4EST today and will get to as many of your questions as I can, so start asking now! Be back soon.

Sounds awesome, right? Unfortunately, the Internet smelled a rat. “iamwoodyharrelson” provided painfully vague replies which generally tried to keep the conversation geared towards Harrelson’s crime drama, Rampart. This led many users to speculate that Harrelson wasn’t actually behind the keyboard at all. Instead, Reddit’s general consensus is that the AMA was lead by a PR team in an attempt to drum up more attention for the movie. You can read the full thread and decide for yourself by clicking here.

If Reddit is correct and Harrelson’s AMA was really just a marketing ploy, I can see the appeal:  Reddit’s users are mostly males between the ages of 25 – 35, creating an ideal demographic for Rampart. But even though intentions might have been good, the results were not; users were not happy with Harrelson (or whoever was answering questions for him) and his cookie-cutter responses.

In following with Reddit’s upvote/downvote structure, the AMA was voted down enough to lose its spot on Reddit’s front page.

What can we learn from this?

• You can’t go viral without providing great content.
• You can’t lie to the Internet.
• When the Internet expects Woody Harrelson, you should provide Woody Harrelson.

What are your thoughts?

Good Intentions, Questionable Details

The Stop Online Piracy Act started off with good intentions. It was designed to put an end copyright law infringement, an issue which has cost the United States dearly, with estimates placing the amount of money lost to be somewhere in the billions. It’s geared towards “rogue sites,” which are foreign websites out of reach of U.S. laws.

The issue is that these websites are peddling counterfeit and pirated goods online, thereby infringing upon American copyright statutes and rights to intellectual property. In response to this, SOPA allows the United States to punish rogue websites which profit from copyright violations. By punishing these websites, steps towards the preservation of intellectual property are achieved, the bad guys get the boot, and all is well. Right?

Not exactly. With SOPA, the devil is in the details. After consulting blogs, reports, and columns both in-favor and against SOPA, one of the biggest concerns boils down to how the government is being allowed to punish rogue websites: by requiring search engines, Internet providers, and ad networks to block access to blacklisted websites, an act which many critics are stating is a stone’s throw away from all-out Internet censorship.

Critics also maintain that the bill’s vague language suggests that users and websites who post, host, or link copyrighted material could face consequences as well. Therefore, critics argue, major websites like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube are in danger if SOPA were to pass, leading to a massive rallying cry from all corners of the Web.

Response

Websites like fightforthefuture.org and iworkfortheinternet.org have gained huge amounts of attention in the past few months since SOPA was first conceived, and reports by the American Censorship Day website state that over a million people have e-mailed Congress, 87,000+ people have made telephone calls, and untold numbers of individuals have reposted, shared, and up-voted links to various petitions and instructions with how to contact House representatives in order to express their grievances. In short, social media has unified in a short amount of time to fight for their freedoms as Internet users.

This outcry hasn’t gone unnoticed. One of the biggest supporters of the bill, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Tex.), said “claims that this bill will ‘break’ the Internet are unfounded. When one-quarter of Internet traffic is infringing, something is already in need of repair.” In response to the public outcry and in an attempt to set the record straight about SOPA’s intentions, he penned a manager’s amendment which, as he states, “makes it clear that the legislation specifically targets the worst-of-the-worst foreign rogue websites. Legitimate and lawful websites like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter have nothing to worry about under this bill.”

So What Does It All Mean?

No, SOPA doesn’t explicitly state that it will venture out and shut down any and all websites that feature copyrighted content and it’s very unlikely that the government will shut down Tumblr or YouTube anytime soon. But the implications of the bill are frightening enough to garner staunch opposition from many of the biggest tech companies around because the act of censoring a website – even if they’ve broken a copyright law – is crossing a line.

Proponents of SOPA argue that brick-and-mortar buildings must face consequences for violating copyright law, so what makes websites any different? While this is a valid point, censoring a website lends itself to too many possibilities. We don’t extinguish a brick-and-mortar building’s foundation for violating a copyright law, but censoring a website effectively kills its existence.

This lends itself to the loss of innovation many critics argue is an inevitable and unintended consequence of SOPA because not all websites are rogue sources of piracy and counterfeiting. Many websites offer inspiration and resources for artists, businessmen, and other professionals to benefit from, and if they are shut down for profiting from a broken copyright law, people are missing out on the opportunity to experience new things, even if it’s just a touching quote or a funny picture of a cat. And that loss of opportunity, to me, seems wrong.

OPEN and Some Closing Thoughts

The possibilities of censorship have lead to the creation of an alternative anti-piracy bill. OPEN, or the Online Protection and Enforcement of Digital Trade Act, was penned by a coalition of lawmakers including Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.). It places infringement cases not under the judgment of the United States Judiciary Committee, but under the International Trade Commission.

What makes OPEN a less frightening bill is that it does not create any denial of service or censorship; instead, it works to prevent the flow of money that allows pirated movies, music, etc. to be downloaded or purchased by halting the actions of advertisers and credit card companies working with the rogue website. Currently, OPEN is still in its draft stages.

So, long story short: will SOPA end the Internet as we know it? Probably not. But the possibilities that arise from its legislation are enough to warrant some debate, and it’ll be interesting to see how tomorrow’s hearing plays out.

The Image/Video Search product team writes in a post on the search engine’s official blog:

“Yahoo! Image Search now provides the ability to share any image through Facebook and Twitter. By clicking on the image from the search results page, users can browse effortlessly through full-size images via the desktop browser and share with their preferred network of family and friends.”

Essentially, users can now scroll through image results in a pop-up window like Bing allows, but in Yahoo! Images, the results are displayed larger and the overall effect is a lot more streamlined. Facebook and Twitter share buttons are now present, allowing users to quickly share an image with others.

Here’s an example of what the new pop-up window looks like:

Another practical upgrade categorizes results by “Top Images,” “Latest,” “Galleries,” and “Facebook.” Google, on the other hand, only allow images to be filtered by subject. Bing’s filters provide the most customization, but Yahoo! Images appears to be the most user-friendly.

I’ll be honest: I haven’t used Yahoo’s search engine since high school, and my forgotten Yahoo email account is probably full of spam and advertisements by now. However, I’m really in favor of these upgrades because it could make the difference between spending ages sifting through Google’s results and quickly finding the perfect image on Yahoo’s new Images layout.

What do you think about the latest upgrades to Yahoo! Images? Let us know in the comments.

What is it?

From a technology standpoint, the Facebook “Like” button is part of a larger technology initiative called the Open Graph Protocol or Open Graph API.  The platform is an upgrade to last year’s Open Graph announcements. It also replaces the “Fan” button with the “Like” button.

The new protocols will not only allow organizations to have all the features currently found on their Facebook pages page such as being able to “Fan” or now “Like” the organization, allowing that action to show up on people’s profiles, publish that action across their friend’s newsfeeds, but will allow Facebook to start building massive amounts of data on how Facebook users interact with sites within and beyond the Facebook walls.

Simply put the “Like” button and Open Graph Protocol will allow Facebook and organizations to understand web users’ habits across the larger web. They want to build not only a social, but personalized web whose hub is Facebook.

Organizations will be able to find out what users like, what they do not like, what their friends and connections like and then tailor a user’s site experience to that data. They can leverage this platform to make their websites more personalized based on site visitor’s Facebook profiles and actions within Facebook and outside the walls of the social network by utilizing data from sites that also adopt the Open Graph Protocol.

One of the earliest integrations of the new protocols is Levi’s ecommerce site http://store.levi.com/. You can now see the products that Facebook users like and what your friends’ like. Based on your interactions on the site, Levi’s can also provide targeted and personalized recommendations for different products.

Why it matters:

1. Facebook is the most used social network by monthly active users. With just under half a billion users, Facebook boasts the largest active user base of any US-based social network. Need some perspective on that number? If Facebook was a country, it would be the third-largest behind only India and China. Needless to say, it has the largest potential reach of any social network for your brand to connect with consumers.
2. Facebook could be the key to building the true semantic web. Due to the number of users and the ability for Facebook to collect data from its and any site that implements the Open Graph protocols, Facebook is potentially becoming the hub of the semantic web. By semantic web, we are referring to the idea of building a web ecosystem where a user’s needs can be anticipated, understood and personalized for them. Think of demographic or geographic targeting on other sites such as Google, but take it to the next level, where a website understands what you and your network likes, does not like, buys, reads etc, and then personalizes your experience around that data.
3. The growth and data provided by the Open Graph is already massive. The new Open Graph Protocols were announced less than a week ago and already some 50,000 sites have implemented it and Facebook is seeing over 1 billion “Likes” per day.

Privacy Concerns:

The greatest concern is privacy. Facebook has not effectively promoted exactly what these changes mean for users, at least not in terms that the average Facebook user understands. The Open Graph Protocol allows third-parties to access most, if not all, of any Facebook user’s data as long as they are opted into the program through their security settings. It’s important to note that all users were automatically opted into the Open Graph Protocol.

How your organization can use it:

1. Site registration using Facebook. Similar to how Facebook Connect allowed websites to register and sign-on utilizing their Facebook account, sites can even more easily integrate Facebook’s authentication features to allow users to register for your site. Websites can access a Facebook users real name, email address, profile picture and list of friends. This sign up functionality can either replace or supplement your current system and can help increase user signups and improve the quality of user data.
2. Interaction and Engagement. With new features such as the “Like” button and additional sharing features, websites can now engage with visitors in deep ways such as what the larger Facebook community likes on your site or what friends of specific users like. This will help create engaging and meaningful experiences for Facebook users.
3. Syndication beyond the walls of Facebook. Websites that incorporate the “Like” features across different pieces of content—such as articles, images, products, etc.—will allow site visitors to easily spread that content across Facebook and web.

All of these opportunities can ultimately help increase the viral potential of your content. To further illustrate the process, click on the image below which will bring up a larger image to illustrate the “like” process.

- Michael

While we have a lot to learn, we’ve learned quite a bit from the numerous social campaigns we’ve managed for our clients. One of the major findings is that social campaigns are unique. And I mean really unique. You can’t force a customer dialog if the customer doesn’t want to have one. The campaign must be both transparent and interesting enough to make a customer want to interact with your brand. The product, however, doesn’t have to be overly interesting, because most likely there are some people out there who are already fans of this product or brand, and the job of the social campaign is to unite these people and allow them to communicate directly with the brand.

And all of this has taught us a few things about measuring social. It’s tricky for sure. Each campaign is going to have a variety of stakeholders that will all care about different things. Some will care about fans and followers. Some will care about impressions. Some will care about clicks and interaction levels. Some will just care about direct purchase and lead acquisition. So…what is a marketer to do? We’re starting to work through this conversation with clients and help define a “path” of metrics to track. We are working a funnel process, or a customer purchase cycle, to identify clear and measurable points of interaction for the consumer during this campaign. This sounds easier than it is, because each business has a different understanding of their customer, and the purchase cycle, not to mention a different business need for running a social campaign in the first place.

For example, say a client is doing a social campaign to introduce a new tech product into the marketplace. Perhaps we’re holding a live world release and product demo on Ustream, and have held an event registration in Facebook. To promote this, we’ve built a twitter following based on a sneak peak photo opportunity campaign, and an event live-tweet road show. We’ve posted these pictures in a tagged Flickr and Photobucket account. We’ve ran connect based ads that are customized to users profiles in Facebook. We’ve ran ads based on job categories in LinkedIn. We’ve initiated a good forum discussion board and have seeded tech blogs with hot information releases. New product demo’s have been sent to leading bloggers and industry journalists. The campaign kicks off and it’s time to report the initial results. Ideally we’ve worked with the client ahead of time to identify a path to report along that makes decision making easy. Perhaps we’ve created a funnel reporting to identify:

1. Customer Awareness – Facebook Fans, Twitter Followers, Ad Impressions, Blog Posts and Articles Written
2. Customer Engagement – Facebook Fan Interactions & Posts, Twitter Mentions & Retweets, Blog Comments, Article Comments and Reads, Photo Views
3. Customer Activity – Event Registrations, Demo Launch Views

The metric that we’re measuring changes as the campaign progresses, so naturally the reporting and focus should change as well.

So, bottom line, it’s a lot of work. But, when this is done correctly, we’re starting to see some unique findings. For one, clients are starting to enjoy their social campaigns. These campaigns are allowing them some artistic freedom, and a natural extension of what they do anyway. The clients are sometimes even becoming a bit more invigorated with their brand, almost as if learning more about it for the first time. And customers are responding. They are participating and asking questions. They are submitting information and scheduling events. They are event buying products and helping companies streamline R&D processes, through direct conversation and feedback.

Here’s an interesting article about how social media engagement levels are varied and should be looked at uniquely.

Click to: Download 11 Successful Social Media Case Studies

This past December, I was visiting my family for Christmas and my mother asks me “how do I get on facebook?” I quickly replied back “Mom, you don’t.” Perhaps for selfish reasons. I really didn’t know what to say. Here I am, approaching 30, and have been on myspace and facebook for quite a few years. What were once safe harbors for your college party pics and funny comments between friends, has now become a hub for your entire online life, viewable by every friend and family member alike. And the baby-boomers like my parents, they want in on the action too.

The reality of this adoption didn’t hit me personally until this week when I had different friends say their parents where on facebook. I quickly replied back, “so is my mom”. Being in the online marketing business I started to think more about it. I thought about the people that have “added me” as a friend in the last 6 months:

• My Mom
• Two of my Aunts
• My great Aunt
• My second & third cousins
• My older brother
• My older sister

I think it’s safe to say Social Media is not a “fad” and is probably here to spoil the online photo posting for high school and college students everywhere for generations to come. But also, giving us an unprecedented “in” with the boomer-generation that has been historically tougher to reach online.

How about you? Has your parents added you on facebook yet? If not, beware because it will happen sooner than you might think.

Here is an interesting article I came across today by Jennifer Martinez; an industry author on Online Marketing.

http://gigaom.com/2009/08/25/the-social-web-isnt-just-for-the-young-anymore/

Here’s a good article about the Iranian Election usage of Twitter.