Being Peter Kim

Migrating the M20

As the M20 list of top marketer blogs has gained traction, I've decided to move it away from Being Peter Kim and give it a more "independent" home.  Going forward, the list will live at http://www.marketer20.com.

Why?
- Because I think marketer blogs are a distinct and important type of communication
- Because this blog is closely associated with my personal brand and the concept is bigger than me
- Because I think a separate brand will do more to promote the concept and conversation

So I hope that you'll find your way over to the new domain and join the discussion.  I'll probably still cross-post the list here, but I'm curious to see what directions the idea will take with an independent domain.

links for 2007-08-31

• Article from Mundo do Marketing
  WOM discussion - in Portuguese
  (tags: pressquote wom)

The M20: Top Marketer Blogs

The M20 list of top 20 marketing blogs is LIVE.  I've been tweaking the ranking for the past six weeks and have used the same approach as the gamma list.

Here's the first ever live version of the M20.

1. ExperienceCurve :: 74 
2. Strategic Public Relations :: 70
3. Listen Up! :: 59
4. BeRelevant! :: 53
   
5. Conversation Agent :: 51
6. Todd And - The Power To Connect :: 48
7. Flooring The Consumer  :: 42
8. Decker Marketing :: 41
9. The Lonely Marketer :: 41
10. Marketing Nirvana :: 40
11. Consumer Generated Media :: 38
12. Churbuck.com :: 38
13. The Digital Mindset Blog :: 36
14. Bernaisesource :: 35
15. Biznology :: 34
16. Cross The Breeze :: 33
17. AttentionMax :: 33
18. Masiguy :: 32
19. Community Group Therapy :: 31
20. Buzz Marketing For Technology :: 31

Biggest gainers:  Conversation Agent and Flooring the Consumer, aided by momentum from the W list meme.

Biggest loser:  Marketing Nirvana, with a drop from #5 to #10, mostly due to a loss of Technorati authority.  (...blame it on the layoffs?)

FYI there are 15 blogs in addition to these, 7 of which are tied at #21 with 28 points!  I noticed that many blogs did not change spots over the past two weeks.  As for statistics, Google Page Rank has not changed much at all over the test period.  Alexa ranking only changed once.  Technorati authority and feed subscribers change every time.  Consequently, I'll be revisiting the list on a monthly basis.  Look for the next version in October.

Delta flies into the blogosphere

There aren't any links that I could find from delta.com, but today Delta launched an official company blog.

The old delta.com/change site was set up to discuss rebranding; an old message on the site had this to say for itself:

"Very soon, though, it will evolve into something truly collaborative—truly revolutionary.  We envision a forum for open, honest dialogue between airline and air traveler. A place where your ideas may very well influence how we operate in the future. And a stockpile of user-generated tips that will make travel more enjoyable and sane for us all."

Looks like a blog is the aforementioned next step.  Good stuff.  (Let's hope it has more staying power than Delta's twitter account that has gone silent...)

links for 2007-08-23

• MediaPost: Bloggers Key Marketing Aid For Wizarding World Theme Park
  Article on Universal's new Harry Potter theme park
  (tags: experience pressquote)
• Avenue A/Razorfish - suggestions on how to use Facebook
  Good ideas on how to get more value out of Facebook.
  (tags: facebook socialnetworking)

links for 2007-08-21

• WSJ: Screen Shots
  TV advertising for small businesses
  (tags: TVad pressquote)

Reflections on Rio

  Palms on Copacabana Beach 
  Originally uploaded by Pete Kim.

I was in Rio de Janeiro last week.  Some thoughts on the trip:

People
- On the flight down, there seemed to be three types of travelers.  Brazilian families (most common), outdoorsmen (as evidenced by their t-shirts with pictures of bucks and bass), and businesspeople.  The outdoorsmen turned out to be involved in the oil industry, working on pipelines and oil rigs.  On the way back, the flight seemed to be primarily oil workers and U.S. business and leisure travelers.
- Yes, even in "winter" people wear very skimpy stuff on the beach.
- Everyone I met was very friendly.  My clients were gracious hosts and worked a lot of hours.

Being a tourist
- Set fares are ripoffs.  Go by the meter.  (1) At the Sheraton Rio, a staff member offered a car service to Corcovado and back for R$170.  I politely declined and started walking to get a cab.  They dropped the price to R$100.  I kept walking.  One way for R$50.  I said OK and think I took a bad deal.  (2) Leaving Corcovado for Pão de Açucar, I got in one cab and the guy said R$25.  I asked him to use the meter and he refused.  I got out and he said he would.  The fare ended up being R$12. 
- On my day as a tourista, the morning was quite cloudy.  I visited Corcovado in the afternoon under the premise that the clouds would burn off like in San Francisco.  They did and the views were amazing.  Totally worth it - walk up the steps after you get off the train for some exercise.
- I went up Sugarloaf (Pão de Açucar) at night, given that I had already seen the city from above by day.  Don't forget that there are two peaks.  Christo Redentor illuminated at night in the distance is pretty cool.
- One night I walked from one end of Copacabana beach (Leme) to the other (Ipanema), around 10 pm.  There was plenty of activity on the beach; a lot of football games, some just getting started.  Tons of people walking and jogging.  Very well illuminated.
- The shops at GIG have standard tourist fare.  Many stores price in USD and charge 2/3x more than what you'll find in the city.

Logistics
- I found some of the information and advice in my Frommer's 2004 Brazil guide to be either badly outdated or far off point.  For example, "later at night drivers start to look on red lights as optional."  Not that I saw.  Most of the prices on tourist attractions were still the same.  Average prices at restaurants were double or triple as listed in the book.  Other advice was spot on, like hold on to as many small bills and coins (i.e. R$1/2) as possible so others don't have to make change.
- Verizon Wireless?  Total letdown.  My colleague's T-Mobile device wasn't so hot either.  The best off were those traveling with AT&T/Cingular.
- Delta Air Lines?  No complaints.  The only thing I'd suggest is that Delta disable the touchscreen on their seat back TVs.  A middle-aged man jabbing at channels over an entire flight is like a two-year old kicking your seat.  And both have no clue.

Food
- If I ever do the Atkins diet, I will move to Brazil while doing it.
- Warm pão de queijo for breakfast is delicious.  A little bit like pierogis.
- Pastéis are tasty as well.  Kind of like crab rangoon.
- Farofa - great addition to a meal.  Very unique.  Kind of like corn meal.  Kind of like grits.  But really neither.
- Caipirinhas are deceptively strong.  Like a wave's undertow.
- Restaurants that made an impression:  Porcão and 00.
- There is a McDonald's on Copacabana beach.  I didn't eat there.
- Great fruit.

You're not a "marketeer"

Let's drive agreement on this - if you do marketing, you are a marketer.  Not a "marketeer."

1. Marketeer is a pejorative label.
2. Even marketing professionals at Disney aren't "marketeers."  They're called cast members.
3. If you insist on being a marketeer, then you're probably formulating strategery as well.

Thinking through Facebook (for marketers)

Facebook's momentum can be described as any sort of a number of analogies involving velocity.  I've been meaning to write a post but with so much great insight popping up, I'll leave it to aggregation and attribution.

Strategy:

• "I advise marketers not to invest too much time in creating 'a Facebook strategy' as much as they don't have 'an NBC strategy' or 'a New York Times strategy.' Instead, I encourage them to people watch, learn and then plan based on their audience and the big picture." - Steve Rubel
• "Wal-Mart has the opportunity to build a community with these students, but has to resist the temptation of treating this group as yet another marketing channel." - Charlene Li
• "I want to know what's happening in the world faster than anyone else...If someone says something, I want to see it first." - Robert Scoble via Pete Blackshaw

Tactics:

• "Join or build a community, deploy an application (widget), invest in advertising, gather intelligence from profiles, and extend one’s network." - Jeremiah Owyang, "What the Web Strategist should know about Facebook." 
• "Employees are more likely to view important company information when it is just one click away from their Facebook page than if it is on something totally different."  - Shiv Singh, Avenue A/Razorfish
• The annual cost of a sponsored group is $1.2 million - Valleywag

And with all good things comes spam.  The malicious-minded can create fake profiles to mine profile data.

[what's] inside?

  Delta - Take Care of Yourself 
  Originally uploaded by Pete Kim.

Most focus on branding deals with its attempts to persuade.  However, visiting an unfamiliar place brings another aspect of branding to mind:  trust.

Brands stake a claim based on what they're made of, especially products.  Through experience - or association - we trust what we can't see, i.e. it's made of things that are at minimum, safe for us.  And just in case, we have the FDA, FTC, and others for oversight.

I think the Delta amenity kit made of environmentally-friendly materials is a great idea.  When I looked at the ingredients however, it made me pause.  With all of the products recalled recently - including toothpaste - I wondered whether the contents were safe to use.  (this pic has more ingredient detail)

Companies like Nike and McDonalds have caught a lot of flak for supply practices - but all would be wise to audit their operations for potential weak links.

YouTube helps me remember

As I get older, certain events of cultural, social and political significance become etched in memory, along with where I was at a specific point in time.  Aka a lot of "where were you when"-type moments.

Most recently, this was when Barry Bonds hit his 756th career home run.  I had just gotten off a JetBlue flight from Long Beach to Oakland and had watched most of the game on the way up; then happened to stop by a bar in the airport to see the historic at-bat.  There were a lot of people standing there watching who cared; there were about the same number who didn't, just having a pre-flight drink.

Speaking of baseball, there was also that 2004 ALCS Game 7.  Late night, had to go to work the next day.

Another moment was the 2nd tower being hit on 9/11/01.  I was in Phoenix and awake around too early for local time - normal for someone from the east coast.  An indulgence actually, to be able to sleep in.

But the first time this occured to me was September 1995 - I was at a hotel near the Philadelphia airport for a training class when the O.J. Simpson verdict was returned.

For those of a different generation, it was when you heard about JFK or Reagan being shot.  Or even the day the music died.  Maybe for Gen-Y it's when you heard Paris was going to jail.

I'm no psychologist - any thoughts on why an event does/doesn't stick?

Most amazing to me is how YouTube helps us remember.

links for 2007-08-12

• What the Web Strategist should know about Facebook
  From Web Strategy by Jeremiah [Owyang]. Great post!
  (tags: facebook socialcomputing socialnetworking)

My name is not Richard

  My name is not Richard 
  Originally uploaded by Pete Kim.

Got this in the mail today.  Clearly, personalization has risks.

Wanted: Your tips on Rio de Janeiro

Hi - I'm down to Rio de Janeiro next week on business.  Pretty busy schedule, but I'm hoping to squeeze in as much interesting stuff as possible.  Any advice on:

- Things to do?  i.e. advice on things that must be seen/heard/felt/eaten?
- Security?  (especially beyond common sense tips for any big city)
- Other general dos and don'ts?

Thanks for your help!

The M20: Top Marketer Blogs (gamma)

Lots of thoughts swirling about measurement.  One last tweak to the methodology here; I've put together metrics of authority, attention, and influence.

• Authority:  20% Technorati Authority + 20% Google PageRank
• Attention:  10% Alexa traffic
• Influence:  50% Feed subscribers

Let me explain.

Authority:  40% of total.  Technorati scored by rank decile, Google straight up.

Attention:  users actually visiting the site.  I wanted to combine this with other ratings (e.g. NetRatings, Compete) but only Alexa measures the majority of blogs here.  I know Alexa isn't perfect...

Influence:  blog subscribers.  There aren't clear numbers on market share.  I'm using Feedburner stats from blogs that make them available and making an assumption that Bloglines subscribers are 20% of total for others.

Here's the list:

1. ExperienceCurve :: 74 
2. Strategic Public Relations :: 70
3. Listen Up! :: 57
4. BeRelevant! :: 51 
5. Marketing Nirvana :: 49
6. Conversation Agent :: 49
7. Todd And - The Power To Connect :: 48
8.  Decker Marketing :: 45
9. The Lonely Marketer :: 41
10. cgm :: 37
11. Flooring The Consumer  :: 36
12. The Marketing Excellence Blog :: 35
13. Bernaisesource :: 34
14. Biznology :: 34
15. Cross The Breeze :: 32
16. Churbuck.com :: 32
17. AttentionMax :: 32
18. "Turbo" Todd Watson :: 31
19. Masiguy :: 31
20. Community Group Therapy :: 31

Live launch in a fortnight.

Tweets for Today

• 23:52 Bonds 756 #
• 11:16 Stuck in traffic...behind a cable car. #
• 12:18 @CHARLENELI we're in the session! #
• 13:51 @jeremiah - sorry no wifi down here! #

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Tweets for Today

• 11:52 @tracysullivan on the road, it's Chipotle, In-N-Out, Jamba Juice, Chick-Fil-A; everything we don't have in Boston tinyurl.com/2hjyq5 #
• 20:35 another day of perfect southern California weather #
• 22:02 love the outdoor bag claim at LGB - reminds me of hawaii #

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More on the 3 P's of personal social publishing

"There will be time / to prepare a face to meet the faces you meet."  - T.S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, 1917.

"New technologies are enabling a more subtle shift that marketers have yet to recognize and adapt to.  'Dissociative identity marketing' would refer to the relationship a brand establishes with the various personas of a consumer, from the blogging persona, to the social network persona or the gaming persona." - Eric Kintz, The Marketing Excellence blog, September 2006.

"Within a decade or so, most of the devices we carry will be location-aware. Any number of location-based services will be in widespread use. And our friends, family and colleagues will increasingly know where we are -- and perhaps expect to know it." - Jason Fry, The Wall Street Journal, August 2007.

The 3 P's of personal social publishing:

• Personal
• Professional
• Public

It's going to take a while for robust identity management tools to develop.  I'd expect to see one from Yahoo!, Google, or Microsoft.

To make things more difficult, additional platforms will emerge that lend themselves to unique experiences:  mobile, vehicle telematics, in-store kiosks.  In the meantime, technology continues to shift culture and society right before our eyes, e.g. privacy fears over E911 tracking for some people are turning into ways to answer "What are you doing?"

This story is just beginning...blogs are about as "dead" as TV advertising - which means not at all, just evolving, morphing, and adapting.

Tweets for Today

• 17:10 mmm in-n-out...i love LA #
• 17:46 Anyone know the market mix model coefficient for "30 ft inflatable gorilla"? #

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Dr. Strangeblog and a few random things

Toby Bloomberg has posted the story of how I started blogging over at Blogger Stories.  If you've ever bothered clicking on the "about" links here, you'll understand why I'd title mine "Dr. Strangeblog or: How I learned to stop worrying and love the blog."

While on the subject of personal stuff, C.B. Whittemore tagged me weeks ago regarding 8 random things about me.  I'll put a spin on it and tell you the most non sequitur things I've been asked/told:

1. "Are you a hand model?"  (Several times, by fellow air travelers.)
2. "Have you ever lived in Texas?"  (Customs agent, YVR airport.)
3. "The stick is stickability."  (Random guy, Nassau, Bahamas.)
4. "You should be on radio."  (Cab driver, Philadelphia.)
5. "Are you from New York?  You talk like it."  AND "Are you from California?  You talk like it."

With that, I'll tag three people - with a non-random tie back to me:

• Brian Haven
• Bruce Temkin
• R "Ray" Wang

Tweets for Today

• 13:01 love the tech billboards on 101 - bay area economy so different than Boston #

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The 3 P's of personal social publishing

I've been thinking about the roles of different social media tools.  Everyone has.  Steve Rubel and Jeremiah Owyang in particular.  You still get a few LinkedIn requests every week, but now you're also getting a few Facebook notifications and enough people are microblogging for you to at least bother with setting up a Twitter account.

So how does it all come together?  How should it all come together?  It's not like social media has created more hours in the day, so people are engaged for reasons that encompass multiple personal personas.  Here's a model of how I see my own participation, related to content in particular:

• Personal
• Professional
• Public

Overall, I believe that an individual's predisposition governs participation.  Like risk tolerance or the ability to eat spicy food.  There's a mode to which you default, but may prefer more/less beta or more/less wasabi in any given situation.

I think the frequency of social media channels lend themselves naturally to certain types of content.  Moreover, while persistence may be forever (i.e. archived), attention is fleeting.  Upon self-reflection, this is how I see my use of social media:

• Personal:  Microblogging (Twitter).  Highly perishable content, relevant to fleeting moments in time.  Reactions to events and the thoughts of others.  Social small talk, wide range of subjects.  Status updates work better on microblogs than on social networks.
  
• Professional:  Blogging (Typepad).  Considered content, longer shelf life.  Typically pulls different threads of information together.  Ideas worth revisiting at some point.  Focused, purposeful discussion on a limited range of subjects.  Four paragraphs of mental exhaust stream go best as a blog post, not 140 characters or a wall scribble.
  
• Public:  Social networks (Facebook, LinkedIn).  Identity; content close to static in nature.  Your birthday does not change.  Connections last longer than comments.  Focused on one persona of an individual in particular.  Some people only have one.  People become conflicted when developing a new persona, e.g. transition from university to first job.  Applications seem to fit best here.

The lines aren't solid, but they are relatively firm.  I know don't think too deeply about the model (actually not much at all); I just do it.  So why does it matter?  Understanding the nuances of platforms may open opportunites you might not have considered - e.g. maybe microblogging isn't a total waste of time after all.

Thoughts?

Tweets for Today

• 13:48 I'm ranked #1 on Technorati! www.flickr.com/photos/beingpeterkim/1008587447/ - and so are you... #
• 18:09 ever notice the massive levels of non-passenger noise pollution at the airport? crazy. #

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Saturday Technorati bug

technorati - I'm number 1
Originally uploaded by Pete Kim.

Surfed by Technorati and chuckled when I saw my ranking today.

Tweets for Today

• 08:19 at Brasilian consulate again - I think I need a tan. #
• 09:34 walking through the public garden, making way for ducklings #

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Tweets for Today

• 23:12 ugh...tinyurl.com/293wh7 #
• 07:23 wondering if my grey hairs are from work or raising kids. Probably both. #

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Tweets for Today

• 09:15 discussing communications "eek-o-system" with Josh Bernoff #
• 11:44 @jetblue - site problems? I've been trying to book a flight all morning, no luck. #
• 14:44 watching Chelsea on CNN airport network #
• 14:45 prison thriller in next segment - great example of cgm/msm influence #
• 16:32 Approach to DCA is a lot different than I remember pre-9/11 #
• 23:12 ugh...tinyurl.com/293wh7 #

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links for 2007-08-01

• MediaPost: Monster To Slash 800 Jobs; Reinvest in Product, Promotion
  I've used Monster as both a recruiter and job hunter - leaves a lot to be desired on both ends.
  (tags: pressquote marketing)
• The New Yorker: History of Spam
  (tags: advertising)