The Basement

Wow, I'm not sure what I expected but I didn't think I would be at the end of the first week thinking about how to index and filter calls. Thanks to Amanda and the Rocketboom gang, www.buzzophone.com got nearly 1000 unique visitors today and there are over 100 people subscribed to the podcast. Thanks to everyone who has called and/or listened!

The down side has been a high number of kiddie prank calls and obsesive and unneeded obscene langauge. I've been removing them as fast as I can but if it keeps up, I might have to resort to an approval system where I listen to the call before it gets posts. Bummer.

There's also a tone of shameless self promotion going on. I'm all about promotion but I wish folks would be a bit more creative. For example - post on your blog about your desire to be mentioned and ask your readers to call. I don't want to set up a bunch of silly rules, but I may have to in order to keep the content.

I'm also thinking about ways to index calls. I'm thinking about offering multiple feeds based on what people want to listen to. I need to keep it simple because I don't have much time to spend but I've got to do something fast. Other ideas - a way people can call in to comment on a previous call; and the ability for people to add their own presonal Buzz-o-phone to their blog or website.

How would you like Buzz-o-phone to improve?

Buzzophone is the drive-by shooting of the marketing world.

Steve Rubel recently posted a quick blurb about Buzz-o-phone. In response, Robert French posted this comment:

No commentary on the value of this? Good or bad?

How will businesses deal with the WOM this may generate? How would you counsel businesses to approach this new feed of consumer backlash for their product(s), service(s), brand(s) or company?

I would like to hear your counsel on these issues. I bet others would, too.

While Mr. Rubel had no reply, I thought these were great questions. So, I emailed Mr. French and he email back and so on and so forth until today when Mr. French posted the whole conversation as well as some additional commentary. Topics discussed - What are the legal ramifications for Buzz-o-phone? Who is responsible for slander (or is it libel)? What I'm doing to mitigate risk? And what PR folks should be thinking about? A really good (if long) read.

Mr.French also mentions Buzz-o-phone in an interesing post on WOM Marketing. Also a good read.

Also thanks to John Moore of Brand Autopsy for the first non-Basement Buzz-o-phone post, AdRants for their look at Buzz-o-phone from the marketers side of the fence and Jason Whitman of Brand Love Hate for his thoughts.

I just heard from the good folks at Apple - The Buzz-o-phone Podcast is now officially available in the iTunes Store. If you've ever wanted to be on iTunes, here's your chance. Call 1-800-591-5375 and leave a message - your recording will show up in iTunes within a few minutes.

So, do you have story you'd like to share? An recent experience? Is there something that's bugging you that you'd like to get off your chest? Call now, a high-tech answering machine is standing by.

Folks seem to be a little apprehensive. I think folks want to make sure they don't sound stupid or that they call about the right thing. Well folks, let me remind you - you can call as often as you like. If you mess up, just keep calling back until you get it right... whatever that means.

Lastly, there was a Buzz-o-phone message left this morning by a woman about a website that sells clothes. I don't know about you but I couldn't make out the name of the website but the message was great. Now I want to go to the website and check it out. If anyone knows the website, please either 1.) call Buzz-o-phone and let everyone know, 2.) leave a comment here, 3.) send me an email or 4.) call me.

I spent some time over the last few weeks working on my secret project Buzz-o-phone. The idea is pretty simple - anyone can make a toll-free phone call and rant for up to two minutes about anything - a product, service, brand or company - that they're passionate about. Within a couple of minutes, the recording is shared with others as a podcast.

I've written about why I'm doing this on the Buzz-o-phone web page, but in addition to what I've written there, I'm interested in trying to record consumers - in their own voice - as a means to learn about WOM. Ultimately, I would like to record two or more party conversations and think that the telephone is a great way to facilitate that. Buzz-o-phone is a first step proof-of-concept. I'm planning on writing about how I built Buzz-o-phone and how I think the technology could be used in other WOM applications over the next couple of weeks.

I'm also curious if lowering the amount of effort required to share an opinion with everyone on the internet to a single phone call will prompt anyone to actually do so.

We're launching with two recordings by my good friend Danger Dan. While they're worth listening to, I really need YOU to call and voice your opinion about anything you like. Feel free to tell everyone you know about Buzz-o-phone and encourage them to call. Also, I would really appreciate it if you would post about this on your blog (you do have a blog, don't you?). Maybe you could pose a question to your readers and have them phone in their response.

If you're still drawing a blank here are some call starters...

So, please visit www.buzzophone.com for complete dialing instructions and podcast feeds. You can also listen to Buzz-o-phone callers right in your browser with our handy dandy Buzz-o-phone Player.

Be heard! Call Buzz-o-phone today!

I heard from Brains on Fire's Spike Jones who heard from AdPulp that Technorati's David Sifry posted his latest State of the Blogosphere report. This made me think of the Spam in the Blogosphere paper published by CGM monitoring firm Umbria Communications in December. Hmmmm.

Mr. Sifry tells us that there were 8M blogs in March, 2005; about 18M in October, 2005; and about 27M in January 2006. Doubling every 5ish months, he says. After a little quick and dirty curve fitting, I calculated that this means that, according to Mr. Sifry's data that the number of blogs in the blogosphere (at least the ones tracked by Technorati) increase by 12.75% each month. Impressive.

In its comprehensive report on the state of splogs, Umbria Communications says that 2% of blogs were splogs in March, 2005; 13% in October, 2005; and 20% in December 2005. Again, some quick math yields an estimated increase in the percentage of spam blogs at 31% per month. Equally impressive.

But wait, I thought to myself, if the percentage of spam blogs is growing, and the number of blogs is growing, then the growth rate of the number of spam blogs would be even higher. Indeed it is. According to Umbria's report, the number of spam blogs has grown at a rate of 48% monthly since March, 2005. Ummm, super impressive. (or depressive, depending on perspective)

The thing that really struck me is that if spam blogs are growing at such a fast rate, and we haven't seen an increase in the rate of growth of the Blogosphere in general, then what does that mean for the growth rate of non-spam blogs?

Well, let's take a look at Mr. Sifry's blog growth graph.

(click image for larger view)

I created an approximation of Sifry's trend and carried it forward (assuming a constant rate of growth of 12.75%) out to May, 2006. I then created an approximation of Umbria's splog trend for the same time period, using a constant 31% increase in the percent splog (same as 48% increase in number of splogs.) Finally, I subtracted the number of Umbria splogs from the number of Sifry blogs to yield an approximate number of non-spam splogs.

Then I graphed it and got this...

(click image for larger view)

Yulp, you're reading it right. Assuming that both Sifry and Umbria are accurate and that these growth rates are remaining constant - the non-spam Blogosphere has peaked in size and is now contracting. Furthermore, by March, blog spam will represent half of all blogs.

Anybody want to take a stab at what the heck is going on here?

I'm late to the party but I wanted to make some comments on the excellent research paper recently published by Northeastern University's resident WOM(M) expert, Dr. Walter Carl, entitled To Tell Or Not To Tell? -- Research Report on Disclosure & Organized Word-of-Mouth Marketing Programs.

The big point made in the paper, of course, is that there is a strong business case to encourage disclosure in organized (stimulated) word-of-mouth marketing programs. This has been reported and discussed everywhere, including being presented at WOMMA WOMBAT. I encourage everyone who's interested in stimulated WOMM to read the paper and not just the blogosphere coverage, but if you really want to get the most out of it, read Dave Balter & John Butman's book Grapevine first. The reason is because Dr. Carl used the BzzAgent folks for the research project and I think that an understanding of the BzzAgent model lends tremendous context to Dr. Carl's work.

[DISCLOSURE: I'm a BzzAgent but I'm a lousy one as I haven't actually filed any BzzReports. Sorry Dave & Jono.]

One point that hasn't been heavily discussed (although is clearly evident in the report) is that the methodology used (due to BzzAgent's business practice) under sampled WOM episodes in which the "agent" and "conversational partner" (CP) had a relationship characterized as being either "acquaintances" (5.2%) or "strangers" (4.3%).

Not surprisingly, CPs categorized as "acquaintances" or "strangers" were also the least likely to be aware of the agent's affiliation with the WOMM organization (only 36% and 22% awareness respectively). Before anyone freaks out, BzzAgent asks their agent to disclose their affiliation during any WOM episode that is part of an active campaign. That said, it's hard to share information with a stranger and then tell them that you're affiliated with a WOMM firm. Regardless of how sincere and honest you are about the recommendation, without the trust of a more familiar relationship the disclosure makes you look like a shill. Subsequently, the less familiar the relationship, the less likely the CP is aware of the affiliation. This makes sense.

Of the WOM episodes Dr. Carl examined, 44% were involved a CP that was unaware of the agents affiliation. But since the likelihood of awareness of the affiliation is increased with familiarity of the relationship, WOM episodes where the CP was unaware of the affiliation most likely occur between acquaintances or strangers. Since, "acquaintance" or "stranger" relationship naturally convey a lower level of trust than more familiar relationships, it is unclear (at least to me) if the negative response to discovering affiliation later is due to the lack of disclosure alone or also dependent on the the unfamiliar relationship.

In other words, if my best friend recommends a product to me, I trust the recommendation. Disclosure of the affiliation (when or if) is irrelevant because of the high level of trust. (Although because of the relationship I'm also more likely to already know of the affiliation, but I still assert that it doesn't matter.)

If on the other hand, I recommend something to a stranger, the message is not trusted - regardless of disclosure. If I do disclose (before, during or after the episode) the stranger's trust is further decreased. From the perspective of the WOMM firm, an agent that shares something with a strangers is not particularly valuable because of the low level of trust. Furthermore, it presents a higher risk of negative backlash when the CP discovers the affiliation. So why would a WOMM firm want their agents to talk to strangers?

So while Dr. Carl's recommendation is to encourage disclosure, it seems to me that equally good advice is for agents not to talk with strangers.

In BzzAgent's case this happens naturally. BzzAgent doesn't prompt agents to talk with strangers. Instead, BzzAgent realizes that the value of WOM lies in the trust of personal relationships. As such, BzzAgent expects and "counts" WOM episodes with the most familiar relationships - romantic partners, close friends, family, etc. The higher the trust, the higher the pass-along. In fact, I suspect that the overall CP negative feeling towards agent affiliation could actually be reduced by asking agents to avoid WOM episodes for campaigns with CPs that are considered "acquaintances" or "strangers".

Over the last week I've been working on a secret project. I like to think of it as a consumer generated word-of-mouth experiment. I'm particularly interested in experimenting with new ways to collect and amplify consumer opinion - not as a marketer, but as a consumer. I want to make it as easy as possible for folks to share their ideas and opinions with others while creating an opprtunity to learn something about how, what and why people share.

That said, this first stab isn't all that radical but it should be really fun.

While you're waiting in breathless anticipation, I would appreciate it if you would think about products and services that you use. Which products do you recommend? Which do you avoid and why?

Stay tuned...

Last Friday I posted about Cymfony's newly announced Knowledge Center. I brought up some issues that I feel make this resource less effective than in possibly could be. Specifically, I felt that some of the material was too slanted towards Cymfony to be considered unbiased and as such potentially undermines the credibility of the entire site as an objective educational resource.

In response, Jim Nail, Cymfony's Chief Strategy & Marketing Officer, posted comments describing Cymfony's intent with the site, acknowledging my concerns and letting me know what he plans to do about it. (There's also some interesting dialog between myself and German WOMM guru Martin Oetting of the Consumer Empowerment blog.)

That said, Mr. Nail doesn't say he going to change anything.

What he does say is that I've made some valid points and they are going to review their information and that their intent is to educate industry professionals to help reduce the barrier to entry.

So, am I upset? Am I going to rant about how talk is cheap?

Nope. "But Matt, why not?" you ask in surprise. "That's what we come here for!" Well, folks, not today. You see, even though Mr. Nail doesn't promise change, he has provided a cogent and thoughtful response. He's explained their position in very reasonable terms. He's not guilty of either of the two normal marketing guy responses - ignore or blindly defend. He's discovered detractor Kyptonite... he's done the one thing that detractors fear most... he's engaged in a conversation!

You see, if he's being reasonable and I respond in any way other that respectful appreciation, I look like an ass - the proverbial clueless moron.

Think back to the early days of my Volkswagen rant... Just think, if someone from Volkswagen had taken the time to post a couple of paragraphs about how and why they were doing what they were doing, how could I have continued without looking unreasonable? As it turns out, four plus months later I'm posting about somebody at Playboy Googling Kerri Martin (wink, wink, nudge, nudge).

So Mr. Nail and Cymfony get a gold star for engaging detractors. Take note folks, this is exactly how it is done.

But enough of my engage your detractors rant... besides, from the comments Mr. Nail left, I think he probably will make a change or two because I think he thinks it will make the resource better. (I think he's right. ;) ) This is also a sign or Cymfony practicing what they preach. Above all else, WOMM is about listening in order to improve. Oh, by the way, Mr. Nail makes several points about including links to resource that mention their competitors and such, and he's right about every one.

Okay, moving on... in his comments, Mr. Nail makes a couple of really good points that I'd like to highlight. This paragraph jumped out at me...

The second design criterion was to be, in your words, "a primer for the uninitiated." In meeting with prospects (and from my days at Forrester), we hear comments like, "My VP just tasked me with developing a blog strategy and I don't know where to start." I believe the greatest barrier to growth of this area is lack of knowledge and understanding of the trends and how they impact business.

Since I think about this stuff all the time, this is something I sometimes lose sight of - not everybody get this. My petty criticism aside, Cymfony's Knowledge Center does a good job of giving folks a good starting point for these trends.

In closing, Mr. Nail, writes...

The line between "marketing propaganda" and "curriculum marketing" (to use Lester Wunderman's phrase) can be a thin one. I'll review the articles and if we crossed the line, try to dial it back a bit. In the meantime, let's continue the dialogue.

I love the phrase "curriculum marketing." While ultimately, Mr. Nail and I may have to agree to disagree about where the thin line lies, I think that smart companies like Cymfony are focused on educating their customers.

As an added bonus, I would also like to point you to the WOMMA WOMBAT podcast interview that Dave Evans did with Jim Nail prior to the event. I just listened to it this weekend and I really enjoyed it.

I was looking through my visitors today and notices that someone at "Playboy Enterprises" ended up at The Basement after Googling for "kerri martin vw". They looked around over 9 minutes and clicked 8 times! Hmmmm. I wonder why. You know folks, I can't make this stuff up.

Steve Rubel scooped me on this but I wanted to post on it anyway. Cymfony has just opened a "Knowledge Center" on their website that includes summary articles discussing "important trends driving change in marketing and public relations planning, strategy, and execution." Currently, they have articles on blogs, CGM, PR Measurement, and Web 2.0. Jim Nail, Chief Strategy & Marketing Officer for Cymfony, has also posted a bit about in on the Cymfony's Marketing Insight blog.

I think the site is interesting for a couple of reasons. I've read through much of the information and, while I don't agree completely with some of their definitions, I think their coverage, for the most part, is fair and largely accomplishes their stated goal of giving "you the maximum information in the smallest amount of reading." That said, the information provided is really more of a primer for the uninitiated rather than providing new cutting edge information and is laced with some skewed Cymfony marketing propaganda. In this regard, I think it's a good place for business communications folks to start who are trying to get up to speed on the basics. That is, if you can bring yourself to trust any of it.

My biggest complaint of the site is that Cymfony uses the guise of objective industry informational resource as a thin facade for their own marketing message. For example, in their Brief Book for Blogs, they have a document titled "Tools for Searching and Analyzing Blogs". The document lists mostly free blog publishing, search and analysis tools such as PubSub, Bloglines, Technorati, and Ice Rocket. The closest they come to mentioning an actual competitor is listing Intelliseek's free blog only search tool BlogPulse. Now, most everyone will agree that BlogPulse is a "consumer facing" tool, but it is generally considered to be one of the most powerful free blog analysis tools on the web. This might be surprising to someone who read Cymfony's description of BlogPulse in which they say "[Blogpulse] is useful for a quick glimpse of online discussion trends, however it does not filter out duplicate or irrelevant mentions to a level required for marketing research and analysis." First off, I think whether "duplicate or irrelevant mention filtering" is required for "market research and analysis" really depends on the project and application. It feels like this statement is designed exclusively to disparaged the reader from serious investigation. Second, BlogPulse is a teaser product. It (at least partially) is a marketing tool for Intelliseek to attract attention for their commercial (non-free) products, which are also considered to be among the best in the industry, but Cymfony fails to list these products. In fact, not only is there no mention of Intelliseek's non-free products, there's also no mention of other Cymfony competitors such as BuzzMetrics, Umbria Communications and Biz 360.

There is, however, a large entry on Cymfony's Orchestra product. Someone who's not familiar with the space might infer from this "objective" document that there are no serious alternatives to the Cymfony offering. This, of course, is simply not true.

Now, is it so wrong for a company to produce marketing information that promotes it's own products on it's own website?

No, of course not.

So what is the problem here? The problem is that Cymfony is portraying their "Knowledge Center" as an objective resource. They've comingled serious objective and credible industry resources with their own blatant propagandistic marketing material. The end result is that, as a reader, I find myself wondering which pieces are propagandistic and which are objective resources. This lowers trust and credibility and thus lowers the value of the site as a serious WOMM resource.

This is unfortunate because there is actually a lot of good stuff there. The list of blog tools I mentioned, for example, is actually quite good as a list of the major free and low cost tools. Cymfony could have left themselves off the list (because the Orchestra product doesn't really belong) and had a blurb at the bottom that indicated Cymfony provides more advanced professional tools that have capabilities far beyond the tools listed. This approach seems much less smarmy to me. Separate the objective list of free resources from the marketing message of Cymfony's commercial offering. Simple.

Think of it this way. Pretend you know nothing of means of transportation. One day you meet a car salesman. He says to you "Before you can make an informed decision, I can see that you need an education. Lucky for you, I have a Knowledge Center to help you get up to speed." This, of course, sounds pretty good. The salesman goes on to say "Now, you can get around by walking, running, crawling, riding a bike - but you'd have to pay for the bike - or by buying one of my cars." He has two on the lot: a two seat convertible sports car and garbage truck. Now, maybe he's got the right car for you. Maybe he doesn't. But how are you going to feel about the salesman when you learn about other cars, airplanes, trains, motorcycles, trolleys, and skateboards? Will you trust him?

As it turns out, Cymfony does something fairly unique among it's competitors - it combines CGM with 200,000 traditional MSM resources, but because they chose to pretend that they're competitors don't exist, they miss the opportunity to contrast their offerings.

Meanwhile, elsewhere on Cymfony's site, the lead statement in a section labeled "What do we do?" says...

Cymfony helps companies keep their products and messages in tune with the fast-changing expectations of their most important audiences

Oh the irony. I don't know if I'm a member of Cymfony's most important audience, but I expect them to keep their propagandistic messages on the marketing side of the fence. A Knowledge Center is great but keep it objective. BlogPulse could easily drop all mentions of Cymfony from their search engine or move them to the bottom of the search results, but they don't. If Cymfony's site develops into a real resource, objectivity will breed credibility and that will lead to sales. The fact that Cymfony has faked their own product placement makes me question credibility. The fact that they dis BlogPulse makes me think they're scared.

In the age of transparency, you have to compete on your own merit. You'd expect a company capitalizing on consumer generated media to get that.