My Subjot Obsession

Giff Constable social media, startups

I’m a talker online. In the old days, it was via manually-updated websites and forums. These days, I’ve got multiple long-form blogs, and dabble with all the short-form tools. I like to talk about many different topics, but that’s where I get frustrated. With Twitter, I end up restricting my content because most of my followers are there to hear …

Enthusiasts vs Normals

Giff Constable marketing, social media

First Chris Dixon tweeted, “Does anyone really want to have a “conversation with brands”? I I want my relationship to Starbucks limited to buying coffee.” Roger Ehrenberg then responded with a great post on authenticity in brand conversations. I would argue that they are both right, they are just talking about two different people.  Just as Dixon once wrote about …

Facebook, Crappy Business, & A Wee Li’l Thing

Giff Constable social media, virtual goods

Bo Peabody wrote a thought-provoking article for Business Insider called “Facebook And Twitter Will Always Be Crappy Businesses“.  I had to respond to a few things: It is still too early to tell what brand managers are going to do, particularly on Facebook.  You’re talking about a group of businesses (brands and agencies) with highly engrained habits and beliefs after …

Tale of Two Twitters: Information vs Social

Giff Constable social media

I was reading Dave Hornik’s latest post over at VentureBlog and stopped at this sentence: “To P&G, Twitter is a great broadcast medium — it is best for one to many communications that are short bursts of timely information.” I’ve heard others call Twitter an “information network, not a social network” and gather that Twitter itself likes the former term. …

Facebook App versus FB Connect?

Giff Constable social media

One of my projects posed the question: should we create a native Facebook application (example: Playfish’s Country Story) or a separate website using Facebook Connect (example: Thread.com).  FB Connect, after all, still gives you access to the social graph, feeds, etc.  Here are some of my preliminary thoughts after conversations with other folks, and I would welcome your input. A …

Socnet Advertising, where art thou?

Giff Constable social media, virtual goods

A few months ago, I listened to a panel organized by Battery Ventures called “Monetizing Social Media”.  Perhaps not surprisingly for a New York-based event, the panel spent 99% of the time talking about advertising.  Still, I was surprised to see both the Facebook and MySpace representatives brush off microtransaction business models as niche and not worth discussing. The total …