BeeTV, the app that turns everyday TV watching into a social experience and lets users share their favorite TV moments with friends and others in real time, has just recently announced the launch of their new free iPad application, now available in the iTunes store. You can use BeeTV on your iPad or on the Web on BeeTV's site. iPhone and Android devices are planned soon.

It's no coincidence that the most watched television event in history — this year's Super Bowl with over 162 million viewers — was also the most tweeted event ever: 4,000 tweets per second when the game ended. TV moments are meant to be shared. And it doesn't matter if it's the "Big Brother" finale, the latest episode of "CSI" or a hilarious moment from "The Hangover," we all know that it's just not the same when you're watching TV alone. With BeeTV you can share your favorite TV moments with friends and others in real time, as the action unfolds, so that even when you're by yourself you're not watching alone. (Disclosure: BeeTV is a client.)

BeeTV connects your TV viewing experience through tablets, the web (and soon iO/S and Android mobile phones), social networks, fan sites, information — in fact, to just about everyone and anything that is related to TV shows and content. With BeeTV, you can experience TV the way it was meant to be: together.

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Image by danielctw via Flickr

Is the car the ultimate mobile device? Toyota thinks so. With Salesforce.com, they've launched a social network for Toyota owners and drivers that keeps them connected to Toyota, to its dealers, and to other drivers. Time will tell if this takes hold, but you have to admit that the Internet-connected car is closer to reality than ever before, and even before we reach that state, we all have network-connected phones with is in the car. The question is, what do you do with that auto(mobile) computing power?

Vertical online communities, such as Caregiver Village, have always been with us in the form of communities of interest, communities of circumstance, communities of purpose, and communities of action. So, Ujala Sehgal of Fishbowl, N.Y., shares Toyota's go at it, Toyota Drivers Get Their Own Social Network.

Toyota announced that it plans to develop a private social network for its vehicle owners called Toyota Friend. The network, set to launch in 2012, will be developed with San Francisco cloud-computing company Salesforce.com, and will enable drivers to stay connected with their cars, their local dealers, and each other--using their car. "The car is the true mobile device," Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce.com, said recently, according to The Atlantic Wire.

Also check out Engadget's reporting, Toyota to launch social network for people who like to befriend car dealerships.

My advice to Toyota is to hire as many passionate community managers as you can. Who love cars, yes, but more so, are passionate about catalyzing conversation, keeping the momentum after pouring in the energy to not only moderate but to be encouraging and empowering — essentially, someone who is trained in organizational development or hosting amazing dinner parties. For the first six months, it will be (or feel like) 100% Toyota staff or outsourced Toyota staffers (like the team at Abraham Harrison). The community will never be 100% self-perpetuating. The community will always need shepherds to keep the flock together. Though it will surely help, the passion of people about their Toyota will never be quite good enough, though I would recommend keeping the Tundra and Prius crowd sufficiently separated.

What do you think about the power of the private social network?

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"Miracle on 34th Street": Lesson for today's marketers?

Only 15% of word of mouth marketing campaigns show results, but WOM drives sales — when companies honor and nurture it

Word of mouth marketing is seen by many marketers as the economic engine of social business (or social media) because people recommend products and services to each other: All marketers have to do is give them the right information to share and make it easy for them to recommend things, right? Wrong. Or, in popular parlance, "It's complicated."

Here, I'll identify some of the flawed concepts that underlie word of mouth marketing (WOMM) so that you can avoid being part of its 85 percent casualty rate. I'll show in general how you can tweak the idea and succeed with social business initiatives more often.

Word of mouth marketing is flawed

At Alterian's 2010 user conference, Don Peppers shared this arresting statistic in his keynote: Only 15% of WOMM initiatives show positive ROI. Shocking — at least until you start thinking about it. Loosely speaking, WOM (sans "marketing") happens when a trusted and relatively unbiased "friend" shares her experience with a product/service with someone close to her. "Someone like me" who isn't tainted by sales commissions or quarterly revenue targets. Marketing, on the other hand, is generally about creating need or driving sales. Do you see the problem?

In this context, WOM and marketing are mutually exclusive: The latter’s purpose is to serve the company by moving product; the former serves the person first. It’s a conflict of interest, and it will rarely work. Ever.

93% of word of mouth is offline

In a second data point, Keller Fay Group's latest TalkTrack study revealed that the overwhelming majority of WOM (as defined by them) takes place offline and face to face (via e-consultancy and @stefanw), not online through social business. This is not surprising when you stop to think about what traditional WOM is, largely a conversation between family or close friends. Tight ties. However, neither of these references dives into WOM or WOMM deeply enough to understand why and how they can work or not.

WOM among loose ties

Digital communications significantly reduce the cost of many kinds of interaction, so WOM among loose ties will continue to grow. However, marketers should recognize that loose ties and tight ties have important differences because the motivations and level of trust are different. Loose ties are not just inferior tight ties; people form loose ties for many reasons, but the online many-to-many environment enables people to manage their reputations and influence by leveraging the network effect. Tight tie relationships are limited in number, multidimensional and high investment.

How marketers can succeed with word of mouth

Having led marketing for several firms, I can appreciate why marketers would love the concept of word of mouth marketing. Given that they are in conflict, it's important to focus on WOM while avoiding WOMM. I'll wager that the majority of the 85 percent of failures result from not understanding and honoring their differences. The good news is, WOM drives sales — when companies honor and nurture it. Here's how:

• First — and this is a leap of faith — accept that WOM serves the customer, not you. Trust that if you don't interfere, positive results will often result. There is no halfway here; intent and honesty are WOM's key differentiators. Don Peppers shared Staples' "Speak Easy" fiasco as a warning ("sponsored" tweets and bloggers are other traps). All companies say that they put the customer first, but many aren't being honest with themselves or their customers.
• Second, the company must put itself first to be congruent with itself as a business. It shouldn't try to do WOM. But the company, acting in its self-interest, can support WOM. Marketers must safeguard these boundaries if they want to succeed because they form the foundation of trust among the three principal actors: company, friend and customer.

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Over the past few weeks, Nokia held the first Apps for Change contest, inviting people from around the world to suggest a mobile application to benefit society — which Nokia has agreed to develop. The winners also get to steer a $10,000 contribution to a nonprofit organization.

Some 302 submissions were fielded from people in 53 countries. I was one of the judges in the contest (along with Jussi Hinkkanen, Peter Hirshberg, John M. Jordan and Juliette Powell), and we're now announcing the winners.

The winning entry was Red Heart, submitted by Sana Refai and Kamel Seghaeir of Tunisia. The entry put it this way:

This application will help you to generate your blood donor’s networks. In case of emergency, you (or someone else) activates the search of your nearest person in your blood donor’s connection (GPS Localization) and contacts him to come give you help. By installing the application, you precise your blood group. When you add a new entry, the application decides whether your connection can be a donor or not according to her/his blood group. The application can be extends from a private network to a public community by creating a website gathering all blood donors worldwide ...

We liked the idea of a mobile app being at the center of a process that brings together hospital or emergency workers and volunteers in the community in a way that benefits accident victims through the use of geolocation services. Such an app could allow a wide range of individuals in desperate need of a blood transfusion to find compatible donors in their geographical area. While Kamel and Sana’s app could be useful in developed countries, perhaps its greatest value could be found in developing economies, where mobile phones are ubiquitous - but advanced blood transfusion services are not.

Honorable mentions: Using the crowd to carpool — & more

The judges also singled out three other entries for special recognition:

• Seamus Maguire from Ireland submitted an idea for an app designed to increase the use of carpools, and thereby reduce an individual’s carbon footprint. Using such a mobile app, the user could view other nearby users in need of a ride.

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Photo of a bald eagle I took on Friday while kayaking (copyright 2011 by JD Lasica)

The most sublime media conference that you've never heard of takes place every spring in Hollyhock, a tiny town on the remote island of Cortes in British Columbia. Just getting to the place is a bit of an adventure.

Last week was the 12th gathering of the invitation-only Media That Matters, one of a series of conferences/retreats that take place in Hollyhock (another one is Web of Change), a pristine outpost where activists, artists and some of the earth's last flower children have gone to revel in nature, self-actualization and the Great Woo.

Unlike other conferences I've attended, I did no live-tweeting and took almost no notes, because it was all about being in the moment. Indeed, I co-led a long breakout session on Hype-free Engagement, with Nicole Sorochan and Leif Utne, with 5 minutes' notice.

To get a taste of the conference, check out my Flickr set.

Notable quotes & takeaways for media activists

Media That Matters brought together filmmakers, media activists, journalists and educators in a refreshing torpedo-the-silos way. I got a deeper understanding of what goes into the documentary film process and even learned about a handful of social activism sites I hadn't heard of before. Here's a brief glimpse of some highlights:

Documentary filmmaker Velcrow Ripper (photo by JD Lasica)

• I was honored to be one of 30 people given the first glimpse at "Evolve Love," a still-in-progress film by the Canadian filmmaker Velcrow Ripper about love in the time of climate change. He finished this first cut just a few days earlier, and it's absolutely fantastic -- beautiful, heart-tugging and powerful. Look for it in spring 2013. Among those interviewed are 350.org founder Bill McKibben and author Don Tapscott.

• Velcrow, who now lives in Brooklyn, introduced me to Pond5, which his team relied on for the film. The firm offers stock video footage, sound effects and production music, all royalty-free at low prices, and it gets 5,000 new media items per week.

• Bill Weaver, who founded the gathering, carried us through this remarkable journey with grace, humor and wisdom. He may be expanding the Media That Matters concept to other venues, so stay tuned for word about that.

• Bill quoted a colleague thusly: "A great friend is someone who stabs you in the front." Almost worthy of Lao Tse.

• Another one from the 60-years-young Weaver: Don’t call it retirement, call it refirement.

• And Mr. Weaver did manage to quote Lao Tse: "If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading."

• I owe an immense debt of gratitude to social entrepreneur, eco-activist, documentary filmmaker Nicole Sorochan, who drove me and Mother Jones publisher Steve Katz from Victoria to Duncan to Campbell River on Vancouver Island before we scooted over to Hollyhock via water taxi. Nicole drove me back as well while I heard more about her fascinating Save Mary Lake project, one of the finalists in the Social Media Camp Westies awards.

• Louis Fox, co-founder of Free Range Studios, gave a terrific presentation of the six steps involved in Media Alchemy. I hope his team finishes up the ideagram so we can circulate it among social cause organizations.

• Nikos Theodosakis took me aside and showed off his brilliant idea for introducing young students to the concepts of geography, the global village, farming and entrepreneurship through the use of Kiva.org.

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Socialmedia.biz readers get 20% discount on conference fee

Guest post by Carla Schlemminger

Just as the social media monitoring space starts to mature, the Social Media Marketing & Monitoring Conference returns to San Francisco this Monday.

What: With the goal of arming marketers with the insights and information they need to dramatically enhance their social media marketing, organizers Our Social Times hope to answer these questions for attendees:

• How can we use gaming in our marketing?
• How can we benefit from location marketing?
• How can social media monitoring enhance our marketing?
• What is Social CRM and how will it affect our bottom line?

Last fall the one-day event dove deeply into specific topics yet kept the program kept presentations short, allowing for a lot of useful Q&A and ample time for networking.

According to the founder and CEO of Our Social Times, Luke Brynley-Jones, this year’s must-see session is “Using Social Gaming Mechanics for Marketing” by Rajat Paharia, CEO of Bunchball, who's at the forefront of gamification. The rest of the impressive speaker lineup includes Aaron Strout, John Zell, Giles Palmer, Chris Heuer, Gary Lee, Jodee Rich, Peyman Nilforoush, Renee Blodgett, Dan Martell, Chase McMichael, Elyse Tager, Jennifer Neeley Lindsay and Luke Brynley-Jones.

Where: Marines Memorial Club & Hotel, 609 Sutter St., San Francisco

When: Monday, May 23, 9:30 am to 6:30 pm

Register: Register now — Socialmedia.biz readers get a 20% discount by using the “SMB20” code. Or follow the conference buzz on Twitter at the hashtag #SMM11.

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Eli Pariser's new book shows what you don't know can hurt you

At the Personal Democracy Forum last year, Eli Pariser, former executive director of MoveOn.org and its current board president, gave one of the most memorable talks during the conference by raising a warning that almost no one else has done.

Eli's book, "The Filter Bubble: What the Internet Is Hiding From You," is being released today. Buy the book on Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble or Indiebound.

Personalization is an interesting topic, one that I've written about for years (see below). But this is the first time we've heard about the downside of personalization. Following is a Q&A that Eli fashioned to explain what he uncovered.

What is a “Filter Bubble”?

We’re used to thinking of the Internet like an enormous library, with services like Google providing a universal map. But that’s no longer really the case. Sites from Google and Facebook to Yahoo News and the New York Times are now increasingly personalized – based on your web history, they filter information to show you the stuff they think you want to see. That can be very different from what everyone else sees – or from what we need to see.

Your filter bubble is this unique, personal universe of information created just for you by this array of personalizing filters. It’s invisible and it’s becoming more and more difficult to escape.

I like the idea that sites might show me information relevant to my interests. I already only watch TV shows and listen to radio programs that are known to have my same political leaning. What’s so bad about this?

It’s true: We’ve always selected information sources that accord with our own views. But one of the creepy things about the filter bubble is that we’re not really doing the selecting. When you turn on Fox News or MSNBC, you have a sense of what their editorial sensibility is: Fox isn’t going to show many stories that portray Obama in a good light, and MSNBC isn’t going to the ones that portray him badly. Personalized filters are a different story: You don’t know who they think you are or on what basis they’re showing you what they’re showing. And as a result, you don’t really have any sense of what’s getting edited out – or, in fact, that things are being edited out at all.

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Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley of KISS will be on hand.

Ortsbo real-time chat translation tool to be featured this Friday

I'm pretty psyched.

Next week I'm headed down to LA to report on a live event starring KISS's Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley, who will be participating in an online chat using Ortsbo (disclosure: Ortsbo is a product from my client Intertainment Media).

Ortsbo is a very cool real-time chat translation tool. You can chat with anyone in the world in your native language, and it gets translated to the other person in their native language, all in real time. And it interfaces with your friends on your existing chat applications such as Facebook, Windows Live Messenger, and Google Talk.

They're trying to break a world record for the most nationalities in an online chat. They need 50 to establish a world record and already 80 are registered for the event.

The event will be live streamed along with the live chat. Here's the info:

When: Friday, May 20, 7:30am - 10:30am PT (yes, it's in the morning)

Register at KISS Live And Global.

Sign up for Ortsbo so you can be chatting too. Invite all your friends from around the world!

Write simply, not simplistically, in your messaging and outreach

Image via Wikipedia

Universally, the biggest gasp I get when I meet people new to marketing, PR, or advertising is that most ad copy is restricted to a 6th grade reading level. I am going to use this blog post to reassure everyone that writing simply should mean writing elegantly and not writing simplistically, resulting in young adult fiction. While the reading ease is kept simple, we're generally not writing to appeal to 12-year-olds. One of the biggest challenges that writers have across all disciplines is with interpretation. While ambiguity and nuance is favored by poets and novelists, creating copy that isn't concise, clear, and succinct is a disservice to my clients.

What is required, at least online and when engaging bloggers, is messaging that endures the obligatory game of telephone that always happens when sharing between people. If you've never heard of telephone, I thought I would share this from Wikipedia:

The first player whispers a phrase or sentence to the next player. Each player successively whispers what that player believes he or she heard to the next. The last player announces the statement to the entire group. Errors typically accumulate in the retellings, so the statement announced by the last player differs significantly, and often amusingly, from the one uttered by the first.

Social media is essentially a game of telephone, so it is critical to make sure the last player receives as intact a message as possible, no matter who is in the chain. No matter their background, native tongue, education, gender, cultural heritage, age, or disposition, our most important job is creating messaging that both injects a durable copy into the mind and consciousness of the consumer while also making it past the client's review.

It isn't easy, to be sure. If I choose a word that someone isn't familiar with, they generally won't take the time to explore the OED—not because of intellect but because people are busy, people have limited time and attention, and we don't have them on salary. The time we have with them is generally limited to five minutes from opening an email pitch to when a blogger clicks on [Post] on their blog.

Gustave Flaubert was fastidious in his devotion to finding the right word, le mot juste, and so should we be because when you're able to spend a little time distilling your message, the client's message, or your company's mission, then you'll probably learn quite a lot about yourself as well as how you're perceived.

I had been using the word premasticate in my talks about blogger outreach and online messaging because I like to think about how the kiss was developed, in a time before Gerber's when baby food was made by a mother who would pre-chew food for her child. I also like to think of sea birds going out to sea, fishing for smelt, and then coming back and feeding their chicks through regurgitation. I loved these visuals and it always amused classes when I did my Blue-footed Booby mating dance (pictured above) and subsequent feeding of chicks as marketing metaphor. However, I now know that the visual is vile and is often considered infantilizing to bloggers.

Like I said, I am always listening and always learning. Progress not perfection.

When you think carefully about your core message, think about not just the ideas but also the consumability of each word (6th or 7th grade reading ease), you also realize that thinking this way can also be very useful for organic SEO and search.

How? Well, when you consider every word, you'll start to think about how other people read and comprehend your brand. Have you ever listened to an interview of someone who has a highly-technical job? Their responses tend to include acronyms, nicknames, and references that are only understandable by other scientists, politicians, engineers, doctors, and lawyers. A good interviewer asks what those acronyms means, slows the interviewee down, asks them to explain what they're saying. They call this unpacking your thinking, or layman's terms.

Google runs on layman's terms—all search does. And because search engines don't use thesauri and are painfully explicit, it's important to broaden your choice of words (search keywords). For example, a television is also popularly called a TV, a flatscreen, a plasma, a big screen, an HDTV—even a boob tube and idiot box. If you don't include them all in your online copy—if you don't know the potential lingua fanca of everyone, you really had better cover your bases.

In summary, the resulting "simple" of any copy you write for general consumption should be as accessible as possible—not simplistic. More like Hemingway—to the marrow—rather than of a lower fidelity. Writing like this requires and demands that we, instead, work harder, become more concise, and distill the larger prose, copy, corpus, text, into something more essential, more easily and universally comprehensible and intact.

It demands the we bear the brunt of the load, do all the hard work, instead of depending on others to parse what we're on about. And, on that note, I am well aware that I didn't follow any of my rules while writing this post. Let me know if I should have.

Via Biznology