Watch the video of my entire Seattle Town Hall talk on January 13, 2010 (we’ll post the high-res version later). Here is my slide deck with notes (cross-posted from The Storyteller Uprising blog).  Special thanks to MCDM’er Jay Al-Hashal who provided the design concept for the deck and advised me on structure.  We covered everything last night — Iran, the Haiti Earthquake, Google’s stunning Chinese censorship decision, and as always, the future of journalism and the danger of echo chambers:

Flip the Media is the best blog ever! Flip the Media will teach you everything you ever wanted to know about social media… and more! In fact, experts say that reading Flip the Media will make you more popular with the opposite sex, reverse male pattern baldness, and even cure some types of cancer!*
*results not typical.

Sponsored posts — endorsements by bloggers in exchange for compensation from marketers, dubbed “blog-ola” for “blogger payola” – have become a reality. Flip the Media is great, but can it really do everything described above? Probably not. To combat deceptive sponsored posts, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced last year that it plans to revise its Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising (“the Guides”) to regulate how bloggers and other social media users endorse products. This could strike a blow to both the companies who crowdsource using social media and the bloggers who supplement their income with freebies. Read more…

Typhoon Morakot caused serious mudslides and floods in southern Taiwan. Those scary and heart-breaking scenes have been broadcast to the world through the news. Whole mountain villages were destroyed and people lost their beloved homes and families. Bridges collapsed and traffic to the city was cut off. The situation demanded rescue services, food, supplies and medical treatment.
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I watch amazed as the events in Iran unfold. Who knows how this will turn out. More often than not, the common people do not fair well when they stand opposed to a tyrannical regime but I have hope. The eyes of the world are upon them. My eyes are upon them. These are not my enemies. The people of Iran look all too human to me. They do not appear to be the ghastly nuclear bomb building “other”. When I see the pictures and look in their faces, I see my neighbors, my family. Their expressions of fear, hope, and defiance bind me to them. I am empathetic. I hope for their safety and well being. I yearn for their freedom. Read more…

As I write this, irreverent social web headline service Fark.com is on its 8th thread about post-election Iran (“The Revolution will not be televised; it will be Blogged, Twittered, and Farked.”). Twitter feed #iranelection has replaced CNN as the go-to place for breaking news about this dramatic, heart-wrenching story (see #cnnfail).

Just last week, a Harvard study concluded (as breathlessly summed up by the BBC) “Twitter remains the preserve of a few, despite the hype surrounding it.”  Tonight, NBC’s “Chief Foreign Correspondent” Richard Engel is back in network’s NYC studio, banished by Iranian authorities, relegated to monitoring — as we are — firsthand reports on “Twitter…and other online sites.” [p.s. I worked with Richard in Baghdad in 2004]

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moot, a skinny 21-year-old college student and hacker prodigy who looks about 16, runs a website out of his parents’ basement called 4chan, an adults only bulletin board where just about anything can be posted—with the exception of advertising. Oh, and anything that violates local or US law, or any complaints about 4chan of any kind. Under rule number two is a reminder that if you are under the age of 18 you need to “discontinue browsing immediately.” Since moot launched 4chan in October 2003 with his mother’s credit card, obviously he’s spent a fair amount of the time in-between breaking his own rules.
moot describes 4chan as “a simple image-based bulletin board where anyone can post comments and share images.” Because people can post anonymously—the comments and images–and subject matter–can get pretty raunchy. It has a simple, alphabetical (but coded) format with content that leans toward anime and Read more…

Please enable Javascript and Flash to view this Blip.tv video. We’re big fans of New Influencers/Secrets of Social Media Marketing author Paul Gillin here in the MCDM.  So we’re pleased to present his Skype Chat in my COM 581 Social Production and Digital Distribution class.

I’ve also received a bit of attention recently (“Plugged In: UW is Tweeting Its Way Into a New Social Media Ecosystem”) on my encouraging students to distract themselves with open laptops and Twitter while in class.  Here’s how we use hashtag conversations such as #mcdm581 to enhance the in-class conversation while Gillin was chatting with us:

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If you’re a young company, getting on the Oprah show can mean a pot of gold – it can also make you plenty nervous about ramping up to the anticipated demand. Despite her mainstream platform, Oprah Winfrey practices social networking with gusto! Think about the “favorite things” product handouts and her endorsements of all kinds of products – talk about a network!

Bacon Salt is a Seattle company that just got Oprah-ized, but has a real track record of using social media to get established.

Xconomy first reported on the company, started by two alumni of Jobster.com in 2007. They started with profiles on MySpace and Facebook, and launched discussion groups. Perhaps their crowning touch was to friend everybody who said “I love bacon”. Xconomy quotes their results as 37,000 bacon loving fans on MySpace alone. Founder Justin Esch is quoted as saying “There’s a huge bacon subculture. There’s love and there’s fanaticism.” They have since attracted the attention of venture capitalists, and now Oprah. There are some business lessons here also – Again in Esch’s words:

1. In the social media space, having advocates of your brand, evangelists, is the most powerful thing you can do. Do you trust someone marketing to you, or do you trust a friend’s referral?

2. Be genuine. be honest about who you are and what your intention is.

3. Never give up on promotion. – they mailed product to the Oprah show four separate times, but a convergence that started with John Stewart’s poke at baconnaise got her attention.

Lessons here for all kinds of companies, and for daytime Divas.  Social media has the power to make an overnight sensation – or maybe just a hurricane that was forecast, but never came ashore.